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Thu, Jan 22
Why the CDC still isn’t researching gun violence
Two years ago this week, President Obama ordered the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to get back to studying “the causes of gun violence.”
The CDC had not touched firearm research since 1996 — when the NRA accused the agency of promoting gun control and Congress threatened to strip the agency’s funding. The CDC’s self-imposed ban dried up a powerful funding source and had a chilling effect felt far beyond the agency: Almost no one wanted to pay for gun violence studies, researchers say. Young academics were warned that joining the field was a good way to kill their careers. And the odd gun study that got published went through linguistic gymnastics to hide any connection to firearms.
Read more from the Washington Post.