Medical doctor: Gun deaths should be studied like other public health hazards

In 1993, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article that said owning a gun significantly increased the likelihood of homicide or suicide in a home. Far from making homes safer, their research found that guns make homes much more dangerous.

The study was funded by the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, for injury prevention. The article got a lot of media attention and, in response, the National Rifle Association demanded that the government stop funding health research into the risks of gun ownership.

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Three years later, Republican Congressman Jay Dickey from Arkansas sponsored an amendment that eliminated CDC funding for research into firearm injuries and risks. The years after that, CDC funded research into firearm injury prevention dropped 96%.

The director of the National Center for Injury Prevention, a branch of the CDC, Dr. Rosenberg transferred out of his department likely due to political pressure. In 1994, in response to the early 1990s crime wave, Rosenberg said: “We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns like what we did with cigarettes. It used to be that smoking was a glamour symbol: cool, sexy, macho. Now it is dirty, deadly, and banned.”

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Congressman Dickey passed away in April 2017. In 2012, Dickey and Dr. Rosenberg wrote an op-ed together in The Washington Post, and said: “We were on opposite sides of the heated battle 16 years ago, but we are in strong agreement now that scientific research should be conducted into preventing firearm injuries and that ways to prevent firearm deaths can be found without encroaching on the rights of legitimate gun owners.”

Twenty-five years ago, when I first started practicing medicine, getting HIV was the equivalent of a death sentence. Research into AIDs, much of it conducted at the CDC, has led to tremendous advances. Though HIV is still a terrible disease, it is treatable and patients can live long and healthy lives.

It used to be that cars were death traps. After research into the problem and the passing of various laws, driving has become much, much safer. We now have seatbelts, airbags and laws against drunk driving.

The American Public Health Association and the American Medical Association have both taken to calling gun violence a public health problem. In 2016 more than 100 medical organizations signed a letter to Congress asking them to lift the Dickey Amendment. Nancy Kreiger, an epidemiologist at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health said: “We in public health count dead people, it’s one of the things we do. We count them in order to prevent preventable deaths.”

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The difference between gun violence and both HIV and car crashes is one of data. While motor vehicle deaths are tracked in minute detail in a fatality analysis reporting system no such comparable data exists for gun deaths. We don’t even know how many households own guns.

Things can’t get better if we don’t even know how bad they are now. In order to save lives, we need to open our eyes and not look away from uncomfortable truths. No politician and no special interest group should hold the lives of our children hostage.

Dr. Naveed Aziz lives in Spring Lake.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Spring Lake, NC, doctor: Gun deaths should be studied like other public health hazards