The report in The Times summed it up: “A 14th young person in Wales takes her own life and the whole of adult Britain is on suicide watch.” Nothing seems more tragic or terrifying than youth suicide. That is all the more reason to try to remain rational about it. Yet reactions to a “cluster” of deaths around Bridgend have verged on macabre fantasy, with talk of a suicide “virus” spread via social networking websites.

Let's get real. There is no evidence of any youth suicide epidemic in Britain. New official figures show UK suicides among men aged 15-44 down from a high of 2,951 in 1998 to a low of 2,264 in 2006. The rate of suicides also fell, from 24 deaths per 100,000 young men to 17.7 per 100,000. Among women aged 15-44, suicides are down from 733 in 1998 to 565 in 2006, with the rate falling from 5.9 deaths to 4.4 per 100,000. We are often told that suicide is “the biggest killer of young men”. But then, they rarely die of anything. Of course one suicide is too many - so is one false story about an epidemic that can panic the nation.

Since there is no youth suicide boom, it follows that we should stop trying to pin the blame on some fashionable cause. Reaction to the Welsh deaths has focused on the internet, with accusations of copycat suicides and “grooming”. Yet the local coroner says that investigations show “no commonality between these deaths”. Medicines that can affect the brain have become another pet scapegoat, with proposals to give every new drug in the UK a “suicide rating”. The likely impact will be further to inhibit the development of drugs that could save many lives.

The reasons why a young person takes such a shocking step are often too personal for catch-all theories. One attempted suicide told The Times that: “I had terrible acne and thought I'd never have sex. It was that simple.” There is no simple cure-all for the few suffering such depression.

But if we want to do something positive, how about countering the contemporary culture of miserabilism that depicts people as a plague on the planet and human life as waste? Stop preaching about how grim the future is, and branding wonders of the modern world, from the internet to drugs, as demons in disguise. Let's send out the message that life is beautiful and that suicide is not just another “lifestyle choice”.

Speaking of which, my local paper the Waltham Forest Guardian recently reported that “vulnerable children” responding to a school helpline poster could receive an e-mail from the Samaritans telling them: “Callers remain responsible for their own lives and do not lose the right to make decisions, even if that decision is to take their own life.” Which made me wonder: who needs death-wish websites?

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