Some viewers try to dissuade him while others egg him on. Internet viewers couldn’t tell if a Florida college student, who committed suicide by taking a drug overdose in front of a live Webcam, was joking or just faking it. (He had threatened to do it before.) By the time some concerned viewers on the bodybuilding Web site contacted police, Abraham Biggs, 19, had already killed himself.  Soon after, the officers entered the student’s home while the video camera was still rolling and streaming on the Web.  Biggs was a student at Broward College and suffered from what his family said was bipolar disorder. He killed himself in his father’s Pembroke Pines house. Its still not known how many people watched the suicide.

A onetime “American Idol” contestant who was obsessed with judge Paula Abdul, was found dead in a car parked not far from Abdul’s California home Tuesday.  Police identified the woman as 30-year-old Paula Goodspeed, and say her death appears to be a suicide. According to police, Goodspeed, who was a contestant on season five of “American Idol,” has been fixated on Abdul for years. Abdul told The Associated Press that she is “deeply shocked and saddened” at the apparent suicide.   No official cause of death has been determined.

More Americans struggle with medical bills.

Significantly more people are skipping vital care or delaying paying for prescription drugs because they can’t afford them, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s final election 2008 tracking poll.  Paying for health care retains a solid hold on the public’s list of their top economic concerns, according to the poll. About one in three Americans now say their family has had problems paying medical bills in the past year, up from about a quarter who said the same thing two years ago. Almost one in five (18 percent) of Americans report household problems with medical bills amounting to more than $1,000 in the past year. The survey found that medical issues are much more extensive than they were in previous years. Nearly half (47 percent) of the public says someone in their family is not taking their medication, postponing or cutting back on medical care they said they needed in the past year due to the cost of care. For example, just over one-third say they or a family member put off or postponed needed care and three in 10 say they skipped a recommended test or treatment. The numbers show are 7 percent higher than they were in last April’s tracking poll which asks the same question.
Suicides are increasing among Baby Boomers. For the first time in a decade, suicides in the United States are increasing, a new study finds. Suicides have declined for middle-age Blacks and remained stable for Asians and Native Americans, the study found. But, increasingly more middle-aged White women are taking their lives, the researchers found. “This is a group we haven’t had as much focus on in terms of suicide, because the death rates were higher in elderly White males, and there has been a lot of attention to teenagers and young adults,” said lead researcher Susan P. Baker, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “This 40- to -64 age group has been neglected.” Baker said it’s not clear what might be causing the rising suicide rates among middle-aged Whites. “We need to study the individual people who have committed suicide and see what were their living circumstances. Were they depressed, was this impulsive? A lot more specific information is needed,” she told HealthDay. One possible explanation is that doctors may not be paying enough attention to the mental health of their middle-aged White patients to spot the risk of suicide, Baker said.

Hip-hop producer kills himself in an L.A. jail.

The man who became famous for albums like Tupac’s All Eyez on Me has committed suicide, say L.A. County Jail officials. Johnny “Johnny J” Jackson jumped off a tier this past weekend in the facility where he was held after being arrested for a DUI. Other hits Jackson produced include “Knockin’ Boots” by Candyman. Jackson, 39, had a wife and two children.

Pitcher makes mark with win versus Mariners. Francisco “K-Rod” Rodriguez has the most saves in a season after the Angels’ 5-2 win versus Seattle this past weekend. K-Rod tied Bobby Thigpen’s record of 57 late last week before breaking 58 against the Mariners on Saturday. “I knew it was going to be a really special moment, the way the fans cheered for me when I was coming in,” Rodriguez says. “It was amazing. I haven’t felt like this since we won the World Series.” Having also made his third save in four days, K-Rod credits the deceased grandfather who helped raise him in Venezuela, a nation of many Spanish-speaking Blacks. “He’s with me every day,” adds the pitcher. “I would give up anything to have him right next to me and enjoy this moment. But I’ve got to deal with it.”

Vince Young had gun, thoughts of suicide, report says. Word has surfaced that last week’s brief disappearance by an NFL quarterback was more serious than his team is letting on. Injured Tennessee Titans star Vince Young had shared suicidal thoughts with a team therapist before he left home with a pistol in his possession, according to a police report. The player was found later the same evening after police were contacted, but both Young and Titans coach Jeff Fisher have claimed the incident was exaggerated in media reports. A police statement reveals that Fisher heard from the team therapist shortly after Young’s disappearance. Nashville Lt. Andrea Swisher wrote that the coach told her Young “wants to quit, and he mentioned suicide several times” before leaving home with the gun. He later showed up at the Titans facility and left without incident. Young was booed in the season-opening game during which he threw two interceptions. He was later injured and is expected to be out for at least two weeks.

Experts say it’s time for new approaches to mental health.

A significant increase in mental illness and behavioral problems among young African-American males demonstrates the need for new approaches to treating and better understanding the complex challenges facing these youths, according to a study released Tuesday. Read more about what the report says about the dramatic rise in Black male suicides at BET.con/News.

Study shows teen suicide rate up in U.S. For more than a decade, the suicide rate among kids in this country had steadily and consistently declined. However, that trend ended abruptly. “Suddenly in 2004 we see the sharpest increase in the past 15 years and it appears that it’s persisting in 2005,” says Jeff Bridges, Ph.D. at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Bridge co-authored the study with Carnegie Mellon statistics Professor Joel Greenhouse. Researchers say while the numbers dipped slightly between 2004 and 2005, they’re still up significantly. Now that researchers have identified what may be an emerging crisis, the next step is to figure out the cause. Dr. John Campo says one reason might be the number of kids taking prescribed anti-depressants has dropped by as much as 20 percent. “The vast majority of young people who complete suicide have some sort of psychiatric disorder. Most commonly depression or some mood disorder,” said Campo. Campo says there’s no proven link between the drop in prescriptions and the rise in suicides, but the simultaneous happening is worth looking into. The study looks at young people aged 10 to 19 between 1996 and 2005. Researchers say they also want to look into the role the Internet may play in the number of kids committing suicide.

Radial disparities persist in breast cancer treatment. Black breast cancer patients are not being prescribed radiation therapy as often as Whites, finds a study – the largest of its kind – which was presented Wednesday in advance of the American Society of Clinical Oncology Breast Cancer Symposium. “Although there have been smaller studies of racial disparities in breast cancer care, no prior research has examined the differences across the nation in the rates of radiation therapy after lumpectomy between Whites and Blacks,” said Grace Li Smith, M.D., Ph.D., the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral fellow in M. D. Anderson’s Department of Radiation Oncology. “The national Medicare database, because it’s so comprehensive, allowed us to determine the extent to which racial disparities in radiation therapy affected patients across the country.” The researchers reviewed the Medicare records of more than 37,000 patients diagnosed with early stage breast cancer in 2003. They used Medicare claims to examine the treatment history of women aged 66 and older diagnosed in 2003 with early stage, newly diagnosed breast cancer. Of the 37,305 women who underwent a lumpectomy for their breast cancer, 34,024 were White and 2,305 were Black. Overall, 74 percent of the White women received radiation therapy after their lumpectomy; in contrast, 65 percent of the Black breast cancer patients received the same treatment. “The use of radiation after lumpectomy is considered to be the standard of care for women with invasive breast cancer, as clinical trials have demonstrated that it both reduces the chance of recurrence and improves the chance of survival,” said Thomas Buchholz, M.D., professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology and the study’s senior author. Perhaps the most unexpected aspect of the study, Smith said, was the magnitude of the disparity in specific areas of the country: the Pacific West, 72 percent (Whites) vs. 55 percent (Blacks); East South Central, 72 percent (Whites) vs. 57 percent (Blacks), and the Northeast, 70 percent (Whites) vs. 58 percent (Blacks). “Until further research is conducted, we may only speculate about the underlying reasons why Black and White women are not receiving radiation at the same rate,” Smith said. “We don’t know if fewer Black women are receiving radiation simply because it is not offered to them, because they decline the treatment, or perhaps because they are unable to complete a whole course of treatment due to other health problems. These questions will be important subjects of future study.”