Medical ethics boss urges Mike King's charity destroys suicide letters

The head of a Ministry of Health ethics committee is calling for the immediate destruction of hundreds of suicide notes submitted to an allegedly bogus study backed by comedian Mike King\'s \'Key to Life\' mental health charity. The \'1000 letters\' study launched in September asked people to submit final notes or messages left by victims of suicide so they could be analysed for common themes to inform future interventions and suicide prevention efforts. In October the Ministry of Health wrote to the trust asking it to stop collecting letters immediately, because it does not have ethics committee approval and there are privacy and safety concerns. But Mike King is refusing to stop the research. Lisa Owen asks the chair of the Ministry\'s ethics committee Kate O\'Connor what her main concern was with the Key to Life\'s 1000 letters campaign.