Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Congress To Fund Gun Violence Research For The First Time Since 1990s With New Spending Deal
A bipartisan deal on a government spending bill would for the first time in two decades provide money for federal research on gun safety. A law adopted in the 1990's has effectively blocked such research and prohibits federal agencies from engaging in advocacy on gun-related issues. The spending bill, set for a House vote as soon as Tuesday, would provide $25 million for gun violence research, divided evenly between the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (12/16)
While gun violence is one of the country鈥檚 leading causes of death, it receives little research funding. As many people die because of gun violence, for example, as of sepsis infection, yet funding for gun research is less than 1 percent of that for sepsis, a 2017 analysis found. 鈥淭his is a deal of historic proportions,鈥 said Mark Rosenberg, who was heading the CDC鈥檚 research on firearm violence in the 1990s when Congress abruptly cut off funding for the work. 鈥淚t ends the horrendous position we鈥檙e in, where we don鈥檛 even know what works.鈥 (Wan, 12/16)
While the Dickey Amendment did not outlaw gun violence research outright, the symbolic effect the amendment had was pronounced. Gun violence research effectively ground to a halt in the wake of the amendment and the field atrophied, as young scientists declined to focus their research in an area where they knew funding would be a continual struggle. "What has happened in the last 20 years is that there's been a battle raging between the gun-control people and the gun-rights people," said Rosenberg, who led the NCIPC at the time the Dickey Amendment passed. (Schumaker, 12/16)
The announcement "is a huge victory in our nation's commitment to addressing and solving the gun violence epidemic,'' said Christian Heyne, vice president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "Students graduating from college this spring have never lived in a United States where the federal government studied this issue. That ends today." (Moe and Gregorian, 12/16)
Gun violence research funding was viewed as a top priority for the new Democratic House majority after years of deadly mass shootings in schools, churches and other public spaces. DeLauro said the funding will help the federal government understand the correlation between domestic violence and gun violence, how Americans can more safely store guns and how to reduce suicide by firearms. (Hellmann, 12/16)
