Kurt Cobain suffered from type 1 bipolar disorder and had been on lithium for a number of years to try and control his condition. The song "Lithium" was about his experiences on the drug. It is not the wonderful panacea that this report would appear to suggest; lithium has a number of unpleasant side effects that are not mentioned here.

Lithium does not prevent suicide.

Nice idea in theory - but in practice, there would be far too many problems. For a start, lithium in water would be dangerous to anyone already taking lithium (there being very little difference between an effective dose and a dangerous one, and just a little excess in water could be enough to push blood serum levels into toxicity).

People on lithium have to have blood drawn every 3 months to check for any ill effects on liver and kidneys, as lithium can impair renal function; adding lithium to water would endanger the lives of anyone who already has renal impairment or kidney disease.

And what are the long-term effects of taking lithium unnecessarily for those not suffering mental illness? Suicide rates may be lower in those areas, but are there raised incidences of other mental illnesses?

This report is effectively meaningless; we are not told how many people were involved in the study, what the respective lithium levels were in each area, how long the study went on for, where the study was published or whether this was a peer-reviewed paper. As it stands, this news report is a classic example of science reporting at its worst.