RT Journal
A1 Steinbrook R, Redberg RF
T1 FIrearm injuries as a public health issue
JF JAMA Internal Medicine
JO JAMA Internal Medicine
YR 2013
FD April 8
VO 173
IS 7
SP 488
OP 489
DO 10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.22
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.22
AB 
In 2011, firearm injuries accounted for 32 163 deaths in the United States, nearly as many as the 34 677 fatalities from motor vehicle traffic accidents. The total includes 19 766 suicides, 11 101 homicides, and 851 deaths from the accidental discharge of firearms.1 Homicide is 1 of the top 5 causes of death in persons aged 1 to 44 years, and suicide is 1 of the top 5 causes of death in persons aged 10 to 44 years.2 Yet federal law prohibits all Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health, from using funds, “in whole or in part, to advocate or promote gun control.”3 The ban has applied to the CDC since 1996, and, more recently, to the entire DHHS.4 The meaning of the clause is not clear—preventing firearm injuries and gun control are related but are not synonymous—but it has effectively ended federal support of gun research. Kellerman and Rivara4 note that at the CDC, “no federal employee was willing to risk his or her career or the agency's funding to find out [what the clause meant]. Extramural support for firearm injury prevention research quickly dried up.”