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Proposed Video Gambling Link to Suicide Rebutted
NEWFOUNDLAND, CANADA --
A professor in eastern Canada has made assertions about links between problem gambling and suicide that have turned out to be unscientific at best, and vastly exaggerated to boot.
Peter McKenna, who recently published his book "Terminal Damage: The Politics of VLTs in Atlantic Canada", has said he attributes 10 to 15 suicides in the province of Newfoundland each year to compulsive gambling, and that he feels his estimate is a conservative one.
However, the provincial medical examiner disputes McKenna's claim. Simon Avis stated that of 505 suicides in Newfoundland over the last ten years, only 2 have proven to be directly tied to problem gambling.
While McKenna says that virtually all gamblers who have problem usage of video lottery terminals are suicidal to some degree, and that all Canadian governments know there is a direct and inextricable link between the video gambling machines and suicides, he reveals no scientific data to back up his views.
According to Avis, McKenna is exploiting coincidental connections without proving a relationship. The ME said, "Just because a person gambles and commits suicide, doesn't mean that gambling caused them to commit suicide."
For example, someone might listen to Barry Manilow and commit suicide. This doesn't mean the cause of the suicide was Manilow's music, especially when a substantially larger sample shows no ill effect and simply changes the station.
If McKena wants to make such assertions, he needs the evidence of a study, done with control groups, to determine any real relationship. Otherwise, his science stinks of truthiness rather than truth.
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