Not for the first time, members of the Japanese public seem to be proving the experts wrong by their behavior. It is no longer merely a provocative social phenomenon, however, when the means by which they choose to do so is suicide. According to a new report from the National Police Agency, 33,048 Japanese took their own lives in 1999, the second consecutive year in which suicides were at a record high. Yet for some years analysts have insisted that Japan's suicide rate is not as high as many people think and actually falls somewhere between the high rates of northern European countries and the low ones of Africa, Latin America and elsewhere in Asia.

It is cynical and callous to say, as some unsympathetic observers have, that the new high represents only an increase of 185 self-inflicted deaths compared with the previous year. The costs of this social tragedy for both those who killed themselves and those they left behind are so great they cannot be diminished by such unfeeling reactions. Shrugging it off on the grounds that, after all, Japan traditionally has never looked down on suicide, does nothing to help achieve a solution.

Worries over ill health are always a major contributing factor in the number of suicides reported. Nearly half of those who took their lives last year, did so for that reason. And yet, their number actually declined slightly from 1998 and could be reduced even further if more attention was given to timely intervention by qualified medical and psychological counselors. But early improvement seems unlikely given today's overburdened health-care system, and the stigma that still attaches to those who seek such counseling.