Boots magazine - repeating suicide stats and pronouns…

Have not used Boots in years not since they got bought by USA same goes for Lloyds. thers plenty of alternatives out there.

Just to say as someone who attempted suicide and had 2 suicidal mates (one of which tried 4 times and got sanctioned), none of us talked about it to others who wouldnt understand, we didnt really know why we were fed up with life and wanted out, it was just everything and we were tired of it all.

the only people I know who go around shouting about suicide and are exact about the cause of their ideation, as in you dont use my pronouns I'll kill myself for example, are what is normally referred to as bullies, threatening suicide if others dont do what you say is classed as abuse under the law and those people rarely kill themselves its just another tool to frighten others into submission.

OldCrone it’s very interesting isn’t it?

Yet more schlocky US statistics used to prop up this nonsense.

Wallgreen are preparing to sell Boots off.
This beauty editor could soon be out of a job.

In November 2021, a federal jury found that Walgreens, along with CVS and Walmart, "had substantially contributed to" the opioid crisis.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walgreens#Controversies_and_legal_issues

Somehow I can’t image them publishing an article about how people with anorexia feel so much less suicidal if they’re just allowed to keep chasing their Perfect Weight. And how their families & friends should support their diet & exercise plans. Anorexia is, after all, the MH condition with the highest mortality rate…

They could even use it to flog vitamins/minerals/supplements. Winner.

This is where I have a follow-the-money moment.

Once upon a time Boots were a Quaker company founded on Quaker values. They are now part of wallgreens boots alliance.

I have no idea if it will help, but I have emailed the link to the samaritan's head office......

www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/media-guidelines/10-top-tips-reporting-suicide/

It’s propaganda and it’s highly damaging to the kids it purports to help - that’s what I find so horrifying about this stuff. You are sacrificing the health and bodies of children to push an agenda through emotional blackmail and lies.

Awful.

Boots have been on my personal boycott list for a while. Although yesterday I was walking past my local Boots store (where I’ve spent too much money in the past) and I was trying to remember the specific reason I’d dropped them as I wanted something they would sell but could only remember an extreme reluctance to going in. I remember now it was a combination of the inspirational ’women’ article and their pricing of the morning after pill.

This goes against all The Samaritans guidelines and has the potential to be harmful.

You'd think Boots would understand women. We spend enough on their products...Although I guess hair removal products and cement like foundation sales may increase as they cater to their more special clients. I guess they don't need women like me anymore. Oh well...

Oh you’re right, the beauty editor has just published it . But the previous fact checking rigours have clearly been abandoned.

I remember this article being pulled apart on Twitter at the time it was first published (I believe it was in mag too) but don’t believe Boots ever responded and they clearly haven’t seen any reason to remove it from their site.

It’s highly irresponsible on a number of levels.

Not only is it dreadful for all the reasons discussed, but it also contains the delightful phrase "not everyone feels comfortable in the body they were assigned at birth"

"Body assigned at birth" FFS - like we're just clouds of essence in the womb!

Co operate with political coercion to save a life based on extremely dodgy and selective statistics? Without unpacking the many, many, many other things going on under the surface of all that?

There needs to be consequences for using a position of influence to spread false news in this way that has such serious consequences that most members of the public will be innocent to.

I think the writer is actually James Barr who is flogging his pronoun T-shirts so has a vested (hoho) interest in encouraging people to take pronouns super seriously

Would Boots sell pharmaceuticals and cosmetics that relied on such a dangerous misinterpretation of shonky data gathering?

I mean, maybe they would? They're hardly ethics central, I don't think they pay much in UK tax.

This is interesting because I’ve worked for them in the past and everything had to be medically sourced to the nth degree from trusted sources, using peer reviewed studies etc etc. Looks like there has been a huge shift.

The writer is a beauty editor and does not have the health/psychology background required to write a piece like this for a major health brand and certainly gives no signs of trying to.

The word ally gives me the shudders now because I know ‘cis’ is just around the corner.

This is hugely disrespectful to people who are suicidal or may have attempted to take their lives. The very idea that you could be coaxed out of such a complex emotional and psychological situation as contemplating suicide by seeing "Jane Smith, she/her" in an email signature.

There are no depths to which this dogma won't sink.

You know, if it was any other demographic saying they would commit suicide if they didn't get a common courtesy given to them, they would be told that they cannot control how other people talk about them or see them, they can only control their own reactions.

And.....

Imagine an article stating that if women don't get the single sex services they need, especially around things like trauma or abuse, they'll kill themselves.

If gay men and women are not able to define themselves as same sex attracted they will kill themselves.

This is utterly chilling, that this has become an acceptable thing to say in a high street chemist's newsletter.