Academy, DAHI Ask Presidential Candidates to Develop Plan for Reducing Gun Deaths and Injuries

WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 7-- With the 1994 federal Assault Weapons Ban set to expire on September 13, 13 national medical and health organizations and leaders including the President of The New York Academy of Medicine issued a statement today urging all candidates for public office to take immediate action to reduce gun death and injury. The groups sent their statement to both President George W. Bush???s and Senator John Kerry???s presidential campaigns. To date, neither campaign has responded.

Four of the signing organizations hosted an event today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to release the consensus statement to the press and public. Those organizations are the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Physicians for Social Responsibility and the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma.

Physicians and medical groups are joining in this call to action because they view gun violence as an ongoing homeland security problem. The U.S. gun death rate far exceeds rates in all other wealthy countries; nearly 30,000 Americans die from gun injuries every year.

The statement asks all candidates to develop a comprehensive plan for reducing gun injuries, claiming that ending the firearm injury epidemic should be "among the leading imperatives of our time, along with access to health care, economic policy, environmental protection and, indeed, terrorism and the war in Iraq."

Charles K. Francis, M.D., Director of the Office of Health Disparities at the Academy and President of the American College of Physicians, stated, ???We need a comprehensive national plan and localized plans for reducing gun violence. Most homicides, suicides and domestic violence deaths in the United States involve guns, causing untold suffering fo victims and their families.???

The physicians presenting the statement say they are ready to work with policymakers in developing such plans, and that the pending expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban, despite overwhelming public support for strengthening it, is a symptom of a much larger problem: Policymakers are not paying attention to the fact that Americans are dying from gun injuries.

National medical groups, individual physicians and health leaders signatories include: Ambulatory Pediatric Association American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry American Academy of Pediatrics American Association for the Surgery of Trauma American Association of Suicidology American College of Emergency Physicians American College of Physicians American College of Preventive Medicine American College of Surgeons American Medical Women's Association American Public Health Association National Hispanic Medical Association National Medical Association

Jeremiah Barondess, M.D. Founder, Doctors Against Handgun Injury President, The New York Academy of Medicine

Katherine Kaufer Christoffel, M.D., M.P.H., Founder and Board President The HELP Network Professor of Pediatrics and Preventive Medicine The Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University

Michael McCally, M.D., Ph.D., President Physicians for Social Responsibility

Robert K. Musil, Ph.D., M.P.H., Executive Director and CEO Physicians for Social Responsibility

G??nter Blobel Nobel Laureate, Physiology and Medicine 1999

Barry R. Bloom, Dean Harvard School of Public Health

G. Clarkson, M.D. Senior Vice President for Medical Affairs and Dean University of Miami School of Medicine

Glenn Craig Davis, M.D, Dean Michigan State University College of Human Medicine

J. Kevin Dorsey, M.D., Ph.D. Dean and Provost Southern Illinois University School of Medicine

E. Nigel Harris, M.D. Dean and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Morehouse School of Medicine

Stanley Lemeshow, Ph.D. Dean, Schoo of Public Health Director, Center for Biostatistics The Ohio State University

William D. Phillips Nobel Laureate, Physics 1997

Allan Rosenfield, M.D. Dean, Mailman School of Public Health Columbia University

Linda Rosenstock, M.D., M.P.H. Dean, UCLA School of Public Health

Larry J. Shapiro, M.D. Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor Executive Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs and Dean Washington University School of Medicine

Stephen M. Shortell, Ph.D., M.P.H. Dean, University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health

Alfred Sommer Dean, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Patricia W. Wahl, Ph.D. Dean, School of Public Health and Community Medicine Professor of Biostatistics University of Washington

Zane Robinson Wolf, Ph.D. R.N. Dean, LaSalle University School of Nursing

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  Posted on September 8, 2004

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