Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Don't Ask A Question, You Might Get An Answer
Today Pres. Obama overturned a fifteen year ban forbidding the Centers
for Disease Control from researching gun violence. I was not aware such
a thing existed. But, then, it's been illegal for pediatricians to
inquire if a gun was present in a patient's house in Florida, too.
There's ignorance of fact. There's denial of fact. And then there's
fear of fact. How can one react to this with other than outrage and
contempt?
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4 comments:
Art Kellermann, MD MPH, and long time Chair of Emergency Medicine at Emory did much of the weapons injury prevention research from 1986-1995, after which such research basically stops. The gun lobbyist were not happy with Art's research which famously showed that weapons in the house correlated negatively with safety. Meaning you were much more likely to die or suffer injury from a gun shot wound if there are guns in the house and very unlikely to use those guns for "protection". We of course know this but having that documented in the literature is important. Of course the gun manufactures would like to keep the discussion on the level of opinion, not fact. Opinions are like cell phones. Everyone has one. Even Republicans on the government dole.
As Art explains in a JAMA article, $250M of funding was removed from the CDC injury prevention research after pressure by the gun lobby in 1996. In the same congressional session product liability was essentially removed from gun manufactures. A huge victory for gun lobbyist. Taking away the most likely avenue for true gun reform. Eventually the funding was returned but with a vague warning it not be used in any manner which might negatively impact the second amendment. It was unclear what this meant but no one at the CDC seemed willing to risk finding out.
This shifted funding to the explosion of brain injury research we saw at the time. Art was funded through that CDC money so his research along those lines essentially ceased. To this day he is a favorite subject of personal attacks by the gun lobbyist. Art, who I have known for more then 20 years, is not an activist. He approached this issue like any other public health issue which negatively impacts his patient population. In essence the argument goes his research leaves out this or that and is not complete. That's what happens when you stop funding research.
In any case we have been pushing awareness of this issue for a long time. I was pleased to see the President address this. I was surprised and a actually impressed.
PAC
Must read: Emergency physician Art Kellerman's article on "Silencing the Science on Gun Research" http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1487470
PAC
Sorry that was $2.6M not $250M defended.
PAC
I'm sure that Dr Kellerman is a fine person but I hope he didn't spend too much of the CDC's money showing that one is more likely to suffer a GSW in a house where guns are present. Perhaps I'll apply for a grant to show that one is more likely to be hit by a car on a road where automobiles are present.
Both sides have their "cell phones". As pointed out, the gun people want to shutdown research into the topic, but the anti-gun side also wants to substitute their opinion (through convoluted rationalizations) what the Second Amendment says despite the fact that it is right in front of their face and the SCOTUS ruled over 70 years ago that it applies to individual gun ownership.
Perhaps if both sides would be honest a middle ground could be found but as far as fact and opinion go one is as bad as the other.
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