Printer Friendly
The Free Library
19,573,952 articles and books
Member login
User name  
Password 
 
Join us Forgot password?

CDC BACKS DOWN FROM GUN RESEARCH.


Byline: Lori Montgomery Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), agency of the U.S. Public Health Service since 1973, with headquarters in Atlanta; it was established in 1946 as the Communicable Disease Center.  is quietly retreating from new research on gun-related injuries, now the second-leading cause of death among Americans between the ages of 10 and 24.

Some researchers believe the change is a response to political pressure. The National Rifle Association National Rifle Association (NRA)

Governing organization for the sport of shooting with rifles and pistols. It was founded in Britain in 1860. The U.S. organization, formed in 1871, has a membership of some four million. Both the British and the U.S.
 has repeatedly urged Congress to kill the CDC See Control Data, century date change and Back Orifice.

CDC - Control Data Corporation
 division responsible for gun research.

That division, the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, has produced uniquely influential studies about the risks of gun ownership that some experts compare to early research linking smoking and cancer.

In its latest request for injury research proposals, however, the CDC hardly mentions firearms This is an extensive list of small arms — pistol, machine gun, grenade launcher, anti-tank rifle — that includes variants.

: Top - 0–9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A
  • A-91 (Russia - Compact Assault Rifle - 5.
.

In stark contrast to previous requests that specifically invited firearms-related research, the latest announcement encourages applicants to focus instead on ``social and economic factors that influence assaultive as·saul·tive  
adj.
Inclined to or suggestive of violent attack: "The reduction of cinema to assaultive images ... has produced a disincarnated, lightweight cinema that doesn't demand anyone's full attention" 
 behavior.''

Researchers said it is the first time in the 10-year history of the CDC's injury-prevention grant program that firearms appear to be explicitly excluded as a topic of inquiry.

The CDC ``hasn't put out an announcement that says we don't do guns anymore. But people inside and outside are smart enough to understand the politics here,'' said Daniel Webster Webster, town (1990 pop. 16,196), Worcester co., S Mass., near the Conn. line; settled c.1713, set off from Dudley and Oxford and inc. 1832. The chief manufactures are footwear, fabrics, and textiles. , an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University, mainly at Baltimore, Md. Johns Hopkins in 1867 had a group of his associates incorporated as the trustees of a university and a hospital, endowing each with $3.5 million. Daniel C.  and a researcher in the school's Center for Gun Policy and Research.

``It's a real shame that the one federal agency that has really led the way on this issue is now threatened,'' he said.

CDC officials said they are not abandoning their commitment to gun research, which has consumed about $2.4 million a year since the NCIPC NCIPC National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (US CDC)  was established as a separate division of the CDC in 1992.

They concede con·cede  
v. con·ced·ed, con·ced·ing, con·cedes

v.tr.
1. To acknowledge, often reluctantly, as being true, just, or proper; admit. See Synonyms at acknowledge.

2.
 that the grant announcement published in January does not specifically invite new work on firearms injuries. But as many as 15 gun-related projects are continuing, they said. And staff at the injury-prevention center continues to compile statistics on fatal and nonfatal gun injuries, the most exhaustive such effort in the nation.

``If I said we weren't trying to be more careful, I'd be lying,'' said James Mercy, acting director of the NCIPC's Division of Violence Prevention.

But guns ``are still a priority for us,'' Mercy said. ``The announcement we have out does reflect a new priority, and that is addressing economic factors and their role in producing violence and how we can address them. But that's an additional priority. It doesn't reflect us giving less priority to the issue of firearms injury.''

Controversy over the CDC's research on gun injuries has been simmering for years, virtually since a 1985 report by the National Academy of Sciences declared injuries of all types the nation's No. 1 public-health problem.

In response, the CDC renewed its research into car crashes, drownings, falls, fires, poisonings, domestic violence - and gun injuries, which are expected to surpass motor-vehicle accidents as the nation's leading cause of fatal injuries by 2001.
COPYRIGHT 1996 Daily News
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 1996, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

 Reader Opinion

Title:

Comment:



 

Article Details
Printer friendly Cite/link Email Feedback
Publication:Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)
Article Type:Statistical Data Included
Date:May 1, 1996
Words:482
Previous Article:LAKERS CLAIM THEY ARE NOT DESPERATE.
Next Article:MARINES SLAY THREE IN LIBERIAN BATTLE.



Related Articles
Time from infection to AIDS computed.
Blind data; why the life's gone out of the government's vital statistics.
CDC and ATSDR electronic information resources for health officers.
Public health pot shots: how the CDC succumbed to the gun "epidemic." (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)(Cover Story)
More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws.
D.C. Dispatches.
TRW wins $511 million CDC contract.
Shots in the dark: gun control's shaky foundation.
New method rapidly detects potential bioterror agent.

Terms of use | Copyright © 2012 Farlex, Inc. | Feedback | For webmasters | Submit articles