Frozen Funding on Firearm Research: “Doing Nothing is No Longer an Acceptable Solution

• Main Authors: Marian E. Betz, MD, MPH, Megan L. Ranney, MD, MPH, Garen J. Wintemute, MD, MPH
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: eScholarship Publishing, University of California 2016-01-01
• Series: Western Journal of Emergency Medicine
• Subjects: gun research; gun law
• Online Access: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3n15r8kk
• ISSN: 1936-900X; 1936-9018

December 2015 saw another Congressional budget standoff and threatened government shutdown. This omnibus bill was particularly important for public health, because – for the first time in years – it contained language that would have reversed a 19-year-old prohibition on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funding for research on firearm injury. Unfortunately, 2016’s final Omnibus Appropriations bill did not reverse this prohibition. And so another year begins with the United States – and the world – debating how to solve the problem of firearm violence in this country, without the benefit of objective public health research.