NOT THE SHARPEST KNIVES IN THE DRAWER: Federal Agencies Investigating Health Effects Of Second Amendment
More than a dozen years after Congress banned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from using taxpayer funding to investigate firearms, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is spending millions of dollars to study - among other things - whether six packs and packing heat is a dangerous combo for inner city youth, reports The Washington Times:
Such studies are coming under sharp scrutiny by Republican lawmakers who question whether the money could be better spent on biomedical research at a time of increasing competition for NIH funding. They're also leery of NIH research relating to firearms in general, recalling how 13 years ago the House voted to cut CDC funding when critics complained that the agency was trying to win public support for gun control. …
The NIH, which administers more than $30 billion in taxpayer funds for medical research, defended the grants.
"Gun related violence is a public health problem - it diverts considerable health care resources away from other problems and, therefore, is of interest to NIH," Don Ralbovsky, NIH spokesman, wrote in an e-mail responding to questions about the grants.
"These particular grants do not address gun control; rather they deal with the surrounding web of circumstances involved in many violent crimes, especially how alcohol policy may reduce the public health burden from gun-related injury and death," he said.
Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-TX), and Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) wrote to NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins asking specifically about “[T]the administration's desire to spend, for example, $642,561 in taxpayer funds to learn how inner-city teenagers whose friends, acquaintances and peers carry firearms and drink alcohol on street corners could show up in emergency rooms with gunshot wounds. The day-follows-night quality of this question and its potential answer simply do not seem to justify the expense that would be borne by people who work and pay their taxes.”
Comments