One aim of medicine – and ostensibly of public health – is to reduce suffering. It is one of the most noble things to which a person can be called. It is under the standard of this lofty goal that today’s public health hoplophobes put forth their advocacy research and agitate for decent people being stripped of their fundamental rights. They couch their position in the context of health care. But their field is public policy and law, not medicine. They want the public and policy makers...

   

There have been many breathless headlines lately about "Child" deaths by firearms, precipitated by the recent publication of a study in the journal Pediatrics, “Childhood Firearm Injuries in the United States”. Once again, Organized Medicine is trotting out the dog and pony show about "gun violence" being a "public health problem", and the media is getting the vapors over "child" statistics. The problem —as is nearly always the case—is that they present an incomplete and slanted picture. ...

[Ed: After testifying to the House Appropriations Committee in 1996, Dr. Faria was tapped to serve at the CDC on the NCIPC's grant review committee during the George W. Bush administration. This two-part series (Part II here), republished with permission, describes his tenure there. Originally published by World of Neurosurgery in February, 2007] INTRODUCTION During the years 2002 to 2004, I served in the Injury Research Grant Review Committee (more recently the "Initial Review Group")...

Many years ago, I worked at the Army Medical Research Laboratory. In those days, it was the lab’s practice to run two experiments simultaneously.  One was called the "Pot Boiler" and the other was called the "Nobel Prize". The Pot Boiler was any easy experiment that more or less came out as expected. Pot Boilers didn't break new ground but usually qualified as publishable.  The "Nobel Prize" (no, we never won it) was always a long shot but held the possibility of a new scientific insight....

A common adage in the gun owners' sphere is that a gun is not a talisman. This pithy phrase is used to emphasize the fact that possession does not equal competence. Picking up a firearm does not instantly turn a novice into John Wick. One must be practiced and proficient both in marksmanship and administrative handling to be safe and effective with a firearm. This basic concept seems lost on public health anti-gun crusader Garen Wintemute (himself a self-professed gun owner). (more&hel...

One fundamental is crucial to understanding why doctors and organized medicine are involved in gun policy: Public health is not medicine. It is the primary tool and avenue through which hoplophobic medics seek to infringe on peoples’ right to keep and bear arms. But it is not the practice of medicine. Public health relies on medical data and facts gathered through epidemiological methods. But public health is not a clinical discipline. It is a legal one. In short, public health is t...

On the heels of two prior reviews of books helping us educate children about firearms (Safety On by Yehuda Remer and Guns the Right Way by Jerry Luciano), another one arrived that completes a complementary trilogy. Brownie Bear Teaches Gun Safety is a short storybook just right for younger children who enjoy being read to. In just 22 pages, Brown tells how three kids on their way to school find a revolver and what that leads to. The author, Bridgette Brown (who goes by B.L.), is a prin...