

Researcher’s death shocks Japan - danso
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/08/researchers-death-shocks-japan.html

======
zeratul
I think posts like that should be accompanied with some tools that help to
deal with grief or suicidal thinking.

Here is an online grief support group:

[http://www.onlinegriefsupport.com/](http://www.onlinegriefsupport.com/)

Here is a phone number to a grief counseling group for those in US:

1-800-260-0094

Here is online suicide support group:

[http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/GetHelp/LifelineCha...](http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/GetHelp/LifelineChat.aspx)

Here is a suicide prevention lifeline for those in US:

1-800-273-8255

[EDIT: suicide is a very complex disease that is far from being understood.
I'm sure that prof. Yoshiki Sasai had to deal with much, much more than just
two retracted articles.]

~~~
joepie91_
Relatedly, if a friend approaches you with suicidal feelings, _never ever
ever_ try to talk them straight out of it. It is quite likely that they will
consider you as simply not understanding them, and shut you out - possibly
pretending that all is fine, when it really isn't.

Always try to genuinely understand their feelings and reasoning. Treating
suicide as something that is always and inherently wrong, is more likely to
hurt them than to help them.

Make sure that they understand that you're willing to listen without judging,
even if you might not always immediately understand their reasoning, and even
if you might not agree with them.

~~~
rdtsc
In a few cases I knew, it seemed the warning signs were that the person
mentioned things like "yeah I would never kill myself" seemingly out of the
blue. And then one went and registered to buy a gun. (Which was eventually
used for the act). You are right that these are described more as "feelings"
not just direct verbal statements of the intent to commit suicide.

~~~
judk
[http://www.cqaimh.org/pdf/tool_suicide_risklevl.pdf](http://www.cqaimh.org/pdf/tool_suicide_risklevl.pdf)

(PDF sorry)

Key screening questions are basically:

* ever thought about harming yourself?

* recently?

* have you thought of a plan for how you would do it?

* have you taken any actions on that plan?

The farther down they get that list, the more concerned you should be.
emergency intervention if they Yes all four.

Many people have dark thoughts but have a fear/preservation instincts that
protects them from rash inclinations. But once someone starts acting on their
thoughts, they need close attention from someone quick and strong enough to
intervene. As noted, though, knowing someone's state requires their
willingness to honestly share it, so caregivers need to be trustworthy and be
trusted.

Giving someone hope and a way forward can help them walk back from the edge,
but being manipulative or deceptive or coercive can push them over.

~~~
Albuca
I took an emergency suicide first aid course a couple years back, and to this
day still carry around the pocket-sized "workflow" in the wallet in the hopes
I never need it.

That been said, one of the most important things I took from the course was
the need to have the person with the experimental thoughts to agree to stay
safe. That is, to agree not to harm themselves for a pre-allotted timeframe.
You’re not convincing them not to do it, but instead delaying their feeling of
having to do it now. This time gives you both the ability to seek resources to
help each other through the crisis.

As said above, be supportive of the person. Hear them out. Pushing them away
or making light of the situation is not something that that will benefit
anyone. You may not agree with them, but you must understand in order to help
them through this period in their lives.

Be honest and tell them you don't know how to help - but agree to seek out
help with them. Perhaps they just need someone to show that they are cared
for...

tl;dr get the individual who is experiencing suicidal thoughts to agree not to
harm themselves for six hours (a completely arbitrary number) so that you both
can seek resources for help. DO NOT try intervention unless you are trained to
do so - you could make things much much worse...

------
skosuri
This is such a tragedy. I think a couple of comments should be made.

First, we truly lost a fantastic member of the stem cell community. His lab
produced some of the most ambitious and amazing directed differentiation of
stem cells into neural tissues including the retina (see an old news story
here [1]). Whether or not he was deeply involved in this latest STAP cell
controversy is immaterial to the tremendous contributions his lab has made to
the field.

Second, we should be more careful on how we as a scientific community react to
scientific scandal. Michael Eisen (UC Berkeley DevBio Prof, HHMI, Founder of
PLoS), who's father committed suicide in a similar incident many years ago,
had some poignant comments [2].

[1] [http://www.nature.com/news/tissue-engineering-the-
brainmaker...](http://www.nature.com/news/tissue-engineering-the-
brainmaker-1.11232)

[2]
[http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1619](http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1619)

------
kevinwuhoo
If you didn't see it last week, the "A Buddhist monk confronts Japan’s suicide
culture" post from last week is a really great read. [1] There's a portion in
the article where it speaks to different cultural norms around suicide.

"By [Japanese] tradition, suicide can absolve guilt and cancel debt, can
restore honor and prove loyalty. 'The heirs of Cain can never escape the eyes
of God, even less in the next world than in this,' Maurice Pinguet wrote in
his study 'Voluntary Death in Japan.' 'But in Japan you can hide in death,
disappear into it entirely and mend the fault as you go' In Japan, suicide can
be a gesture of moral integrity and freedom, or an act of beauty."

[1]: [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/24/last-
call-3](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/24/last-call-3)

~~~
ekianjo
I dont think your quote is entirely relevant here. We are talking about
someone who was under huge media pressure following the Obokata case. The
Obokata case was heavily featured in the media here in Japan, and you can
imagine the people involved must have been under tremendous stress. This
scientist may have had some level of guilt because of his involvment with
Obokata but that was nothing worth dying for to clear his name. This is much
more about media exposure and pressure, and in that sense a more regular kind
of suicide.

~~~
jpatokal
No, I think this falls entirely in line with the Japanese idea of accepting
responsibility through suicide. Sasai was Obokata's mentor, he was
instrumental in getting her papers published, and now he's caused a massive
loss of face for not just himself, but the generally very well regarded
institution he works for (Riken).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying he should have committed suicide, I'm just
saying that I can entirely see why he would have considered it a valid option
to discharge his guilt.

~~~
ekianjo
That's just how YOU read it. You probably missed the fact that he mentioned in
his suicide letters he was not killing himself because of her and this case.
He was obviously under emotional stress and that's enough to push many people
to suicide if you are in a fragile state, no matter if you are guilty or not.

~~~
boyaka
Sauce of letter content? I found one news article [1] that says "Police and
Riken said Sasai left what appeared to be suicide notes, but refused to
disclose their contents."

[1] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2716540/Japanese-
sci...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2716540/Japanese-scientist-
stem-cell-research-retracted-proved-false-commits-suicide.html)

~~~
ekianjo
That's what was reported on Japanese news (about the contents of the letters).
I can't find a link right now but I will check it later.

------
euske
There's a speculation that he was suffering from mental fatigue, and I think
it is right. More than anything like keeping the honor/face, this seems the
most likely cause that killed him.

A thing that people outside Japan often don't understand is how harsh and
concerted a media frenzy is. Unlike the U.S., things quickly get very personal
here. And there's not much protection. He was already a heavy target of the
gossip media, and I can imagine all kinds of nasty treatments he got from
people around him, formally and informally, including a nasty look or verbal
harassment in a public place. They're usually subtle but once you're a target
it's very consistent and ubiquitous. It's pretty much how kids are bullied
here, but this time it happened at a national level. I think that could be too
much to handle for a sheltered scholar who dedicated his life for science.

The irony is that, this kind of media frenzy is what they initially sought
until the debacle happened. Now the untamed beast, which is the Japanese
media, bit them back and they're still in rampage. I don't like how the media
handled the whole thing at all, but this is how it is here. (edit: also this
is how smart kids learn not to stand out in Japan)

------
jpatokal
FWIW, Obokata would never have made Nature without Sasai's help, and there's
plenty of scurrilous scuttlebutt on the Japanese Internets about Obokata and
Sasai possibly being romantically involved. There's a slightly more informed
that unusual discussion about the suicide on r/japan, from which I'll quote
the first comment in part:

 _Not surprised, actually. Within the last week there was an NHK show on this
whole thing, in which it was pointed out how key Sasai was to Obokata 's
paper. According to the show, the paper had already been rejected by two
different outlets for shoddy writing and presentation, and Sasai was called in
to clean it up - he did, Nature accepted the paper for publication, and the
rest is history.

But several scientists NHK got to sit down on camera and read over the Nature
article all said basically the same thing: "Sasai sure knows how to write an
attractive paper, but the contents are garbage." Things like possible flaws
with the samples or data would be defacto admitted, but glossed over with a
simple "We checked the STAP cells to see if they were not another kind of man-
made stem cell" \- but then never stated what the results of that check were
(and it seems to have turned out the "STAP" cells were stem cells that for
some reason Obokata had stocks of in her office)._

 _These same scientists on the show were saying that if Obokata 's results
could not be independently duplicated, Sasai had just destroyed his entire
career and Riken itself was going to be in a world of hurt as Sasai was
instrumental in getting grants and funding for them._

 _I feel bad for Sasai 's family. As for Sasai himself, I hope Obokata was
worth it._

[http://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/2cnjq8/obokatas_super...](http://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/2cnjq8/obokatas_supervisor_commits_suicide_at_riken_kobe/)

------
free2rhyme214
This is terrible. I was just in Tokyo last month. I don't know what it is
about Japanese culture but you should never take your own life. Humans are the
only mammals that do this.

~~~
stupandaus
While I do agree it is horrible, humans are definitely not the only mammals
that commit suicide.

------
legulere
It's insane how much faked results and allegations thereof are in stem cell
research. It must be a really stressful environment to work in.

~~~
mcguire
It is weird. There's lots of money and fame, along with even more potential,
so I understand the stress and the temptation.

On the other hand, when these papers came out in January, I didn't understand
how they could be released without much more backup than they had---it was
clearly on the "extraordinary evidence" side of the fence. It was like
everyone involved in the papers and the subsequent media frenzy set this sort
of result up.

------
bagosm
[http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/apr/01/stem-cell-
sci...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/apr/01/stem-cell-scientist-
haruko-obokata-guilty-misconduct-committee)

I thought it would be a crazy story about mutations or something. Turns out
the scientific misconduct is less "freaky" and more "we falsified the data".
RIP to a great scientist though, he was involved very lightly in that case as
it seems. I admire the Japanese honor though..

~~~
stefantalpalaru
> I admire the Japanese honor though..

There's no honor in making a quick exit instead of facing the music.

~~~
m_mueller
This is looking at a foreign society through Western glasses. I recommend you
to travel there sometime for an extended period to understand these people
better. The way I see it, being a member of Japanese society is an honour in
the conservative sense - an honour for which members feel they have to keep
earning it throughout their lives by doing what's best for the society. In
extreme cases some feel that they're not worthy of that anymore or that
they've become a burden to society, so they take their lives. This is not to
say that this is the most common cause of suicide in Japan - many Western
societies have suicide rates that are not that far off. However in this case
here I can very well imagine that this is what happened. Suicide doesn't mean
they're 'cowards' necessarily, they're imposing the highest possible
punishment on to themselves. Just like American society still thinks that the
death sentence is the highest possible punishment.

~~~
acuozzo
> This is looking at a foreign society through Western glasses.

Who gives a damn? " _My culture /society says I should_" is never a good-
enough reason to do something and suicide is no exception.

You can't excuse people for doing stupid shit because of their upbringing.
We're not robots.

------
mariuolo
Now, if only the Chinese started doing the same: [http://io9.com/academic-
fraud-in-china-is-getting-out-of-han...](http://io9.com/academic-fraud-in-
china-is-getting-out-of-hand-1427658261)

------
boyaka
I don't like how whenever there is a suicide, the possibility of being
suicided (somebody else making it look like a suicide with the intent to
discredit and kill) is never suggested, considered, and is even looked at as
conspiratorial paranoia. Of course in this case there are 3 letters left on
the scene, which (if convincingly written by him) would be good evidence
pointing toward legitimate suicide. I would like to see video/witness
evidence, more investigation into events leading up to the death, etc.

The only reason I suggest it as a possibility is the fact that he was highly
passionate about important, controversial research. I would think that he
wouldn't want to commit suicide because of this and that other people would be
out to get him. His work is now being dismantled and he is dead, which is a
big win for people that did not like what he was doing, and clearly a tragic
loss for everything that he believed in.

~~~
boyaka
Putting words into the mouth of the dead? Oh, the letter says it's from 7/2
and even the url shows that! It must be!

[https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.riken.jp/~/media/ri...](https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.riken.jp/~/media/riken/pr/topics/2014/20140702_1/140702_1_3_en.pdf)

As of now it says it was crawled 8/6 at 00:57 (current time is 8/5 18:00 pst)
so I suppose it was crawled when I typed it in to the search? But that
wouldn't match up with any time zone (maybe 1:57 London time).

I also suppose that it is legitimate and they just had it lying around and
decided to post it up today.

Originally found linked in this article:
[http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26001-stem-cell-
scient...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26001-stem-cell-scientist-
found-dead-in-apparent-suicide.html#.U-F9LXVdUsk)

