How The CDC's Reluctance To Use The 'F-Word' — Firearms — Hinders Suicide Prevention
The nation's foremost public health agency shies away from discussing the important link in this country between suicide and access to guns.
That's according to documents obtained by NPR that suggest the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention instead relies on vague language and messages about suicide that effectively downplay and obscure the risk posed by firearms.
Guns in the United States kill more people through suicide than homicide.
Almost 40,000 people died from guns in 2017 alone — 60% of those deaths were suicides. Guns are the most common method used for suicide.
Suicide rates are going up in nearly every state, even though research shows that suicide is preventable. Access to guns is such an important risk factor that any effective public education campaign to prevent suicide would surely need to address it.
The trouble is, the CDC is operating under something known as the Dickey Amendment, legislation passed by Congress in 1996 that prohibits the CDC from spending any of its funds to "advocate or promote gun control."
A lot of attention has been paid to how this has stopped the CDC from funding certain kinds of gun violence research. The law also had another effect: It led the CDC to tiptoe around guns as it tries to tackle the increase in suicides.
"CDC staff do their best to provide the very latest science and evidence-based data to the
