Health care giant Kaiser Permanente commits $2M to gun research

By Daniel Terrill

The nation’s largest integrated health system, Kaiser Permanente, will invest $2 million in research for preventing gun injuries and death. In Monday’s announcement, Kaiser said the endeavor — designated the Kaiser Permanente Task Force on Firearm Injury Prevention — will focus on “addressing preventable gun-related injuries and death, whether by suicide, homicide or accident.”
The Oakland-based company explained the task force will study gun violence like they would cancer or heart disease and then the results will be disseminated for peer review. Kaiser research vice president Elizabeth McGlynn, PhD, who will co-lead development of the research initiative, said they hope their work will “serve as a model for addressing and effectively disseminating research findings in communities nationwide.”
The announcement comes weeks after federal lawmakers clarified through the annual spending bill that they would allow the Centers for Disease Control to once again research gun violence. The subject has been a hotly debated topic since pro-gun lawmakers added language to the spending bill in 1996 prohibiting the government agency from advocating for gun control. The nod to researchers was celebrated as a win by Democrats embroiled in the debate, but the argument over what exactly constitutes as gun violence research continues.
The CDC has

Source: Guns.com