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Reid hosts hearing on suicide ‘epidemic’

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2000 | 10:31 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., whose father committed suicide in 1972, held a special hearing on suicide today on Capitol Hill.

"This will be an opportunity to take a serious look at how suicide has become one of the leading causes of death in America," Reid said in a statement Monday.

"Declaring this problem as a public health epidemic is long overdue, and it's time we started coming up with effective ways to prevent it."

More than 30,000 people commit suicide each year, making it the eighth leading cause of death in America, Reid said. Nevada has the highest per capita suicide rate in the nation, he said.

Reid first spoke publicly of his father's suicide at a 1996 Senate hearing on senior depression. Today's hearing took place before the Appropriations subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education.

"I speak from experience when I say there is nothing more devastating than losing a loved one to suicide," Reid said in the statement.

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