ACP offers policy recommendations for reducing gun-related injuries, deaths in US

ACP: Physicians have a right and responsibility to discuss gun violence with their patients

2014-04-10

(Press-News.org) April 10, 2014 -- A new policy paper from the American College of Physicians (ACP) offers nine strategies to address the societal, health care, and regulatory barriers to reducing firearms-related violence, injuries, and deaths in the United States. Reducing Firearm-Related Injuries and Deaths in the United States is published today in the peer-reviewed medical journal, Annals of Internal Medicine.

Principal among ACP's nine strategic imperatives is the recommendation to approach firearm safety as a public health issue so that policy decisions are based on scientific evidence. As such, ACP strongly supports universal criminal background checks to keep guns out of the hands of felons, persons with mental illnesses that put them at greater risk of harming themselves or others, people with substance use disorders, and others who current regulations prohibit from owning guns.

The United States has the highest firearm-related mortality rate among industrialized nations. ACP believes that a comprehensive, multifaceted approach is necessary to reduce this epidemic of gun violence and that physicians play a vital role.

"Patients have long trusted their physicians to advise them on issues that affect their health," said Molly Cooke, MD, FACP, president of ACP. "Physicians can play a critical role in educating the public on the risks of firearm ownership and the need for firearm safety through their encounters with their patients. ACP strongly believes the patient-physician relationship should be protected from laws that prevent physicians from initiating a discussion about guns."

To inform its policy position, ACP's Health and Public Policy Committee conducted a comprehensive review of the available data on the impact of access to firearms, mental health, state and federal firearms laws, and efforts to reduce firearms violence. ACP also surveyed a large, nationally representative panel of internists in the United States about their attitudes on firearms and firearm injury prevention.

"We concluded that firearm violence is not just a criminal justice issue, but also a public health threat that requires the nation's immediate attention," said Thomas Tape, MD, FACP, chair of ACP's Health and Public Policy Committee. "As an organization representing physicians who have first-hand experience with the devastating impact of firearm-related violence, ACP has a responsibility to participate in efforts to mitigate needless tragedies."

Survey results suggest that ACP's position is supported by internists. Eighty-five percent of internists surveyed believe that firearm injury is a public health issue and 76 percent support stricter gun control legislation. An overwhelming majority of respondents favor mandatory background checks, mandatory registration of all firearms, and bans on assault weapons, high capacity magazines, and armor-piercing bullets. A full report on the physician survey is published today in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Other recommendations in the policy paper include:

ACP supports appropriate regulation on the purchase of legal firearms to reduce firearms-related injuries and deaths, acknowledging that any such regulation must be consistent with the Supreme Court ruling establishing that individual ownership of firearms is a constitutional right under the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

ACP recommends that guns be subject to consumer product regulations regarding access, safety and design. In addition, the College supports law enforcement measures to aid in the identification of weapons used in crimes.

ACP believes that firearm owners should adhere to best practices to reduce the risk of accidental or intentional injuries or deaths from firearms.

ACP cautions against broadly including those with mental illness in a category of dangerous individuals. ACP recommends that every effort be made to reduce the risk of suicide and violence through prevention and treatment of the subset of individuals with mental illness who are at risk of harming themselves or others. ACP believes that diagnosis, access to care and treatment, and appropriate follow up are essential.

ACP believes there is enough evidence to enact legislation banning the sale and manufacture for civilian use of firearms that have features designed to increase their rapid killing capacity (often called "assault weapons" or semi-automatic weapons) and large capacity ammunition and retaining the current ban on automatic weapons for civilian use.

ACP supports efforts to improve and modify firearms to make them as safe as possible, including the incorporation of built-in safety devices.

ACP believes that more research needs to be funded on firearm violence and on intervention and prevention strategies to reduce injuries caused by firearms. Access to data should not be restricted.

INFORMATION:

The American College of Physicians is the largest medical specialty organization and the second-largest physician group in the United States. ACP members include 137,000 internal medicine physicians (internists), related subspecialists, and medical students committed to advancing the science and practice of medicine. Internal medicine physicians are specialists who apply scientific knowledge and clinical expertise to the diagnosis, treatment, and compassionate care of adults across the spectrum from health to complex illness. Follow ACP on Twitter and Facebook.

Annals of Internal Medicine is one of the most widely cited peer-reviewed medical journals in the world. The journal has been published for 87 years and accepts only 7 percent of the original research studies submitted for publication. Annals of Internal Medicine is published by the American College of Physicians. Follow Annals on Twitter and Facebook.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Single mothers don't delay marriage just to boost tax credit, study says

2014-04-10

MADISON, Wis. – When the Earned Income Tax Credit was expanded in 1993, supporters hoped it would reward poor parents for working while critics feared that it might discourage single mothers from marrying or incentivize women to have more children to boost their tax refund. A new collaborative study done by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Cornell University reveals the EITC has helped the working poor but hasn't affected personal choices. Sarah Halpern-Meekin, assistant professor of human development and family studies and affiliate of the Institute for Research ...

Antennae help flies 'cruise' in gusty winds

2014-04-10

Due to its well-studied genome and small size, the humble fruit fly has been used as a model to study hundreds of human health issues ranging from Alzheimer's to obesity. However, Michael Dickinson, Esther M. and Abe M. Zarem Professor of Bioengineering at Caltech, is more interested in the flies themselves—and how such tiny insects are capable of something we humans can only dream of: autonomous flight. In a report on a recent study that combined bursts of air, digital video cameras, and a variety of software and sensors, Dickinson and his team explain a mechanism for ...

Enzyme revealed as promising target to treat asthma and cancer

2014-04-10

In experiments with mice, Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center scientists have identified an enzyme involved in the regulation of immune system T cells that could be a useful target in treating asthma and boosting the effects of certain cancer therapies. In research described online April 6 in Nature Immunology, the investigators show that mice without the enzyme SKG1 were resistant to dust mite-induced asthma. And mice with melanoma and missing the enzyme, developed far fewer lung tumors—less than half as many—than mice with SKG1. "If we can develop a drug that blocks ...

Researchers discover possible new target to attack flu virus

2014-04-10

Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered that a protein produced by the influenza A virus helps it outwit one of our body's natural defense mechanisms. That makes the protein a potentially good target for antiviral drugs directed against the influenza A virus. Better antiviral drugs could help the millions of people annually infected by flu, which kills up to 500,000 people each year. When an influenza virus infects a human cell, it uses some of the host's cellular machinery to make copies of itself, or replicate. In this study, the researchers ...

For sick, elderly patients, surgical decision making 'takes a village'

2014-04-10

Surgical decision making for sick, elderly patients should be orchestrated by a multidisciplinary team, including the patient, his or her family, the surgeon, primary care physician, nurses and non-clinicians, such as social workers, advocates Laurent G. Glance, M.D., in a perspective piece published in the New England Journal of Medicine. For this group of patients, surgery can be very risky. Glance, professor and vice-chair for research in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry believes a more patient-centered, ...

Medicare's flawed adjustment methodology poor way to spend billions

2014-04-10

Lebanon, N.H. (April 10, 2014) – The methodology Medicare uses to adjust the billions of dollars it pays health plans and hospitals to account for how sick their patients are is flawed and should be replaced, according to a new study by Dartmouth investigators published in the journal BMJ that weighed the performance of Medicare's methodology against alternatives. The researchers from the Dartmouth Atlas Project compared Medicare's current risk-adjustment methodology, which is based on the diagnoses recorded in patients' claims records, against adjustment indices based ...

American College of Physicians releases policy paper on medical liability crisis

2014-04-10

Washington, DC, April 10, 2014 -- The American College of Physicians (ACP) today released a policy paper on the medical liability crisis, which continues to have a profound effect on the medical system. "Medical Liability Reform—Innovative Solutions for a New Health Care System" provides an update of the medical liability landscape, state-based activity on medical liability reform, and summarizes traditional and newer reform proposals and their ability to affect system efficiency and encourage patient safety. "While medical liability premiums have leveled off in the ...

New cell models for tracking body clock gene function will help find novel meds

2014-04-10

PHILADELPHIA — The consequences of modern life -- shift work, cell phone addiction, and travel across time zones -- all disturb internal clocks. These are found in the brain where they regulate sleep and throughout the body where they regulate physiology and metabolism. Disrupting the clocks is called circadian misalignment, which has been linked to metabolic problems, even in healthy volunteers. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Memphis describe in PLOS Genetics the development of new cell models ...

Tumor-suppressor connects with histone protein to hinder gene expression

2014-04-10

HOUSTON -- A tumor-suppressing protein acts as a dimmer switch to dial down gene expression. It does this by reading a chemical message attached to another protein that's tightly intertwined with DNA, a team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported at the AACR Annual Meeting 2014. The findings, also published in the journal Nature on April 10, provide evidence in support of the "histone code" hypothesis. The theory holds that histone proteins, which combine with DNA to form chromosomes, are more intimately involved in gene expression ...

Study shows 'dinosaurs of the turtle world' at risk in Southeast rivers

2014-04-10

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Conservation of coastal rivers of the northern Gulf of Mexico is vital to the survival of the alligator snapping turtle, including two recently discovered species, University of Florida scientists say. A new study appearing this week in the journal Zootaxa shows the alligator snapping turtle, the largest freshwater turtle in the Western Hemisphere and previously believed to be one species, is actually three separate species. The limited distribution of the species, known to weigh as much 200 pounds, could potentially affect the conservation of ...

Children who grow up with pets or on farms may develop allergies at lower rates because their gut microbiome develops with more anaerobic commensals, per fecal analysis in small cohort study

North American Early Paleoindians almost 13,000 years ago used the bones of canids, felids, and hares to create needles in modern-day Wyoming, potentially to make the tailored fur garments which enabl

Higher levels of democracy and lower levels of corruption are associated with more doctors, independent of healthcare spending, per cross-sectional study of 134 countries

ACP offers policy recommendations for reducing gun-related injuries, deaths in US

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: