MEMORANDUM 
FROM:  PHB
SUBJECT:  CDC'S 3RD NATIONAL INJURY CONTROL CONFERENCE, 
APRIL 1991

The CDC recently distributed the keynote speeches from the conference
held last spring.  The first speech was by Vernon Houk, Asst. Surgeon
General and Director, National Center for Environmental Health and
Injury Control (CDC) (and one of the co-authors of the NEJM editorial
praising the first Seattle/Vancouver "study" as scientific).

"Many firearms are possessed with the only intent being to harm
people.  No person worth his or her salt needs and automatic or even
semiautomatic weapon for hunting or target practice."  It would be
interesting to learn how effectively Dr. Houk thinks our international
athletes could prepare for competition with revolvers or single-shot
pistols.

Dr. Houk uses motor vehicle regulation as an example for firearms,
noting they aren't banned, but that there are regulations and
licensing, cars and highways are made safer, driver behavior is
strictly regulated and enforced, and, as a result, we now save 25,000
lives relative to 1980 and even greater "when compared with three
decades ago when we had about 380,000 deaths per year."  (It is
unclear what Dr. Houk has been ingesting, since the total number of
motor vehicle deaths peaked at about 56,000, and the number per
100-million vehicle miles has been declining fairly steadily for the
past decade, unsteadily in the '70s, and was stable in the '60s, so
the rate has been cut in half since 1960 -- a bit less than the rate
of accidental firearms fatalities.  That is, of course, comparing rate
per 100,000 population to rate per 100,000,000 motor-vehicle miles.
Doing both on a rate per 100,000 population, with strict regulation,
improved cars and highways, lowered speed limits, and registration and
licensing, the motor vehicle accidental death rate fell about 12%
between 1960 and 1990, while the accidental death rate from firearms
fell almost 150%.)

Surgeon General Antonia C. Novello also felt compelled to discuss
firearms a bit in her plenary session remarks.

She talked of the need for "limiting the access to firearms among
children, in order to reduce unintentional injury and death.  This
should be an essential component on the top of all of our agendas.

"Today, homicide and suicide are the second and third leading causes,
respectively, of death among children.  Investigators believe that
ready access to loaded firearms in the home for children under 15 is
the chief contributing factor in unintentional shootings, with an
increase in the use of firearms paralleling an increase in violent
deaths."

It is unclear whether she comprehends the meaning of the term
"unintentional" when talking of the need for making firearms accident
reduction important -- second only, it would seem, to motor vehicle
accident reduction, despite the small and decreasing number of
accidental firearms fatalities among children.  Although she mentions
"children" and "children under 15," her statement of homicide and
suicide being second and third (to motor vehicles, presumably) is only
true for "children" 15-24; it is not true for children under 15.

"Although the question of restricting firearm ownership and usage is
contentious in American society today, few would argue that children
should not have access to firearms or other lethal weapons."

She then goes on to note that lack of helmet use among children
bicycling has an economic cost of over $1-billion annually, with more
accidental deaths among "children aged 0 through 19" than firearms
accidents, and some 48,000 accidental injuries (which compares with
about 26,000 accidental firearms injuries annually among all age
groups).

Finally, Mark l. Rosenberg, Director, Division of Injury Control,
National Center for Environmental Health and Injury Control (CDC)
spoke.

Regarding violence prevention, he notes some things regarding guns,
suggesting as possible "interventions...1) having parents teach their
children what to do if they find firearms, 2) storing and using
firearms safely, 3) designing safer firearms, and 4) substituting less
lethal weapons for personal protection."  He does not discuss the fact
that most CDC-funded studies reject Eddie the Eagle and similar
efforts to teach children what to do if they find firearms.

Importantly, he notes that "Our next conference will be combined with
the Second World Conference on Injury Control, to be held in Atlanta,
May 20-23, 1993."