Suicide tourism have repeatedly criticized suicide assistance for foreigners, branding it "suicide tourism" ("Sterbetourismus" in German). In 2007, Dignitas launched an effort to gain legal permission for healthy foreigners, including married couples committed to suicide pacts, to end their lives in Switzerland. In July 2009, British conductor Sir Edward Downes and his wife Joan died together at a suicide clinic outside Zürich "under circumstances of their own choosing." Sir Edward was not terminally ill, but his wife was diagnosed with rapidly developing cancer. In March 2010, the PBS Frontline TV program in the United States showed a documentary called "The Suicide Tourist"
Edward Downes (American musicologist) for Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., preparing briefing books for the Office of Strategic Services. Downes taught at Wellesley College, the Longy School of Music, the University of Minnesota. Much of the end of his career was as a professor at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he taught and advised doctoral students. Downes was at one time music critic of "The Boston Evening Transcript", "The New York Post". Downes also wrote program notes for the New York Philharmonic for eighteen years. In 1955, after his father died, Downes went to work for