Suicide contagion has been dubbed the Werther effect, after the hero of Goethe’s 18th century novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther. In the novel Werther kills himself after falling hopelessly in love with a married woman. Following its publication in 1774 there were hundreds of copy-cat deaths in Germany. Recent research has confirmed just how strong the effect is. Every time a celebrity suicide is given exposure in newspapers or on television, the copy-cats follow. It is estimated that Marilyn Monroe’s death in August 1962 was responsible for 200 extra suicides within a month. After a popular South Korean actress hung herself in 2008, suicides jumped 66 per cent that month, with young hanging victims accounting for most of the increase
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