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Medical Journal Bias on Guns
National Review Online ^ | October 18, 2010 | John R. Lott Jr.

Posted on 10/18/2010 1:37:37 PM PDT by JohnRLott

Medical journals are not always the objective, purely scientific publications we might think that they are. Their editors have increasingly strayed into politics at the expense of scientific accuracy. For example, the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has over the last few months published a number of extremely biased and poorly done studies on gun control.

One of the articles, written by Garen Wintemute, Anthony Braga, and David Kennedy, makes the case for extending background checks to the private transfers of guns, arguing that “perhaps the principal reason for the well-documented failure of the Brady Act to lower rates of firearm-related homicide is that its requirements do not apply to private-party gun sales.” But they do so without providing any evidence that these or any other background checks reduce crime. Further, they conveniently overlook the only research that has been done on what they are proposing. For instance, the updated More Guns, Less Crime specifically studied this very issue and found no evidence that either type of law helped reduced crime.

The only “evidence” that “screening works” comes from their claim that, in 2008, 1.5 percent of those having a Brady background check were denied from purchasing a gun. What the authors likely are aware of, though they do not tell the readers, is that virtually all these cases represent so-called “false-positives” . . .

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; Government
KEYWORDS: anthonybraga; banglist; braga; cantor; corruption; davidkennedy; democrats; fail; garenwintemute; gunban; guncontrol; johnlott; juliecantor; junkscience; kennedy; leftwingextremism; liberalfascism; liberalism; liberalprogressivism; liberals; medicalmalpractice; medicine; nejm; progressives; researchbias; socializedmedicine; wintemute
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1 posted on 10/18/2010 1:37:42 PM PDT by JohnRLott
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To: JohnRLott

Medical journals highlight the fact that many physicians are not scientists. Authors who do poor work often mean well. This, however, is a topic of blatant bias.


2 posted on 10/18/2010 1:45:31 PM PDT by Gondring (Paul Revere would have been flamed as a naysayer troll and told to go back to Boston.)
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To: JohnRLott

The Journal has held a far left, anti-gun position for DECADES!!! This is certainly nothing new.


3 posted on 10/18/2010 1:45:37 PM PDT by Oldpuppymax
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To: JohnRLott

The New England Journal of Medicine is, indeed, “prestigious,” but it doesn’t deserve to be. It has been hip deep in left-wing politics for the past forty years, at least.

It led the way on euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the right to die. It led the way on abortion and useless fetal stem cell research.

It is deeply involved in pushing the culture of death into the medical community, which is the last place that it belongs.

Hippocrates would not have approved.


4 posted on 10/18/2010 1:46:22 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius.)
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To: JohnRLott

Simple. These “doctors” are vindictive, insane leftist morons (but I repeat myself). Take MA for example. No one can privately buy or sell a firearm here without a state license. To get the state license you are investigated to a degree that makes a CORI look like a joke. And even then, the local chief of police can tell you he “doesn’t like your looks” and deny you. In MA, you see, a denial is non-appealable. Convicted serial killer child molesters CAN appeal, but not honest citizens who want a gun. I stay in this s***hole of a state because I like my house and my town (far, far away from the Boston cesspit). The joke, of course, is that if you get an LTC in your small town of West Kneecap, you can carry concealed anywhere in the state, including Boston. It is BOSTON residents who are denied any LTC application. So, if someone attacks you in Boston, call out for someone from out of town to help!


5 posted on 10/18/2010 1:46:34 PM PDT by pabianice
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To: JohnRLott

Dr Jonathan Ira Groner of Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus is a real tool of the Brady idiots.


6 posted on 10/18/2010 1:52:40 PM PDT by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: JohnRLott
I remember reading that "More people are killed by doctors than by guns"
7 posted on 10/18/2010 1:55:28 PM PDT by capt. norm (Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups.)
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To: JohnRLott

The following admissions were taken from JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) : The top five causes of death in the United States, in order, are:

1) Tobacco
2) Alcohol
3) Medical malpractice
4) Traffic accidents
5) Firearms

According to JAMA, doctors kill more people than auto accidents and guns put together. With that in mind, one has to wonder why gun control is such a hot legislative issue when, perhaps, we should be more concerned about doctor control.


8 posted on 10/18/2010 2:05:01 PM PDT by capt. norm (Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups.)
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To: capt. norm
I would love to see a reference for your list.

The top ten list from the CDC is as follows:

1.Heart Disease 616,067 (25.4%)
2.Cancer 562,875 (23.2%)
3.Stroke 135,952 (5.6%)
4.Chronic Lower Respiratory Diseases (Lung Diseases) 127,924 (5.3%)
5.Accidents 123,706 (5.1%)
6.Alzheimer's Disease 74,632 (3.1%)
7.Diabetes 71,382 (2.9%)
8.Influenza and Pneumonia 52,717 (2.2%)
9.Kidney Disease 46,448 (1.9 percent)
10.Septicemia (infection of the blood) 34,828 (1.4 percent)

http://www.howtolivealongerlife.com/2009/07/leading-causes-of-death-in-us.html

9 posted on 10/18/2010 2:27:21 PM PDT by Gabrial (The Whitehouse Nightmare will continue as long as the Nightmare is in the Whitehouse)
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To: JohnRLott
A second piece in the same issue, by Julie Cantor, describes the effects on crime from the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller Supreme Court decision in the following way: “Dire predictions have not yet been realized.” This suggests that there is inevitable misfortune yet to come. The New England Journal of Medicine published articles and editorials prior to the 2008 Heller decision warning about a crime wave, so the journal ought to have a serious discussion about the actual outcome. We can easily understand why such an examination would prove embarrassing. No one would guess from their discussion that D.C.’s murder rate fell by 23 percent in 2009 and continued falling sharply in 2010, several times faster than the drop in murder in the rest of the nation.

And in a bad economy, when Liberal’s always will tell you that crime gets worse because people are poor and desperate.

Thugs will think twice when they know their life is on the line.

10 posted on 10/18/2010 2:48:25 PM PDT by Pontiac
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To: JohnRLott

My hubby is one of those that generates a “false positive.”

Before he got a concealed carry license, if he bought a gun at a gun show on the weekend, when they went to do the background check, it would show that he had an FBI file. However, there was no way to check (on the weekend) and see what that FBI file was all about, so they had to wait until Monday to get the details and the final clearance.

BTW, he has an FBI file because when he was in the military, he had to undergo an investigation/background check to get a special security clearance. So in the background check, a file that documented him to be a fine, upstanding guy actually generated a record that showed they stopped a “bad guy” from getting a gun.


11 posted on 10/18/2010 2:49:24 PM PDT by RedWhiteBlue
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To: AdmSmith; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; bigheadfred; Convert from ECUSA; Delacon; dervish; ...

12 posted on 10/18/2010 2:53:24 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
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To: harpseal; TexasCowboy; nunya bidness; AAABEST; Travis McGee; Squantos; wku man; SLB; ...
Click the Gadsden flag for pro-gun resources!
13 posted on 10/18/2010 3:10:25 PM PDT by Joe Brower (Sheep have three speeds: "graze", "stampede" and "cower".)
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To: Gabrial
I would love to see a reference for your list.

It was right there on my post...hiding in plain sight:

"The following admissions were taken from JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association)."

I don't know how I could have made anymore clear.

14 posted on 10/18/2010 3:23:16 PM PDT by capt. norm (Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups.)
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To: JohnRLott

I have never subscribed to this journal or the Lancet. They mail them to me along with JAMA and they all three go directly into the trash can.


15 posted on 10/18/2010 3:24:01 PM PDT by therut
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To: pabianice

Or move to Arizona. We have great neighborhoods. We even get snow if you think you’d miss it. Once you’ve moved to Arizona, the steps are: get an I.D., walk into gun shop, purchase with instant check, buy a fitting holster, go to the ammo section and buy the proper ammo, go to the register, pay, (then I’d recommend walking out at this point) put on holster, load gun, holster gun and properly conceal. I hope that explains living in a free state like Arizona properly to you poor folks living under a fascist dictatorships.


16 posted on 10/18/2010 3:26:00 PM PDT by Takethathill (Put on the whole Armor of God. Ephesians 6:10-18)
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To: capt. norm

Oops! I didn’t include that part of it...but it has been on this forum a bunch of times.


17 posted on 10/18/2010 3:26:00 PM PDT by capt. norm (Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups.)
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To: capt. norm
"I remember reading that "More people are killed by doctors than by guns""

Originally posted here on FR as a vanity, but based on an article in the Seattle main newspaper (which only included deaths from medical accidents). The vanity part added the numbers for accidental firearms deaths from federal statistics, and calculated the ratios.

It was picked up from here and spread LOTS of places, including the NRA's American Rifleman magazine, and "bounced back" to FR numerous times. The original vanity was lost completely in one of the early FR database.

The original sense was that more people die accidentally from "medical misadventure" (i.e. medical "accidents" from all causes, which includes nurses and pharmacists errors) than by "firearms accidents", so it wasn't "killed by doctors" vs. "killed by guns", though the latter is also true.

The latest shows about 100,000 deaths/year due to "medical misadventure", and about 35,000 deaths per year from guns (including murder, suicide, as well as accidents). But the ratio comparing accidental gun deaths is more germane, as the number of "medical misadventure" deaths that were murders or suicides is not knowable.

18 posted on 10/18/2010 3:40:24 PM PDT by Wonder Warthog
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To: Wonder Warthog

I often wonder how many of the deaths by “medical misadventure” aren’t accidents. Let’s face it; there are cases of people who are terminal, comatose with a few days left at most getting an extra 10 mg of MS to end it.


19 posted on 10/18/2010 4:28:41 PM PDT by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: JohnRLott

CONSUMER REPORTS has the same problem. The magazine had an article about home defense a couple years ago - and listed everything BUT guns as a method of self defense: “home alarm systems, private security, guard dogs.”

I wrote a letter to the Editors at CR, asking why they omitted hand guns. I ended it with, “I assume that a CR issue will rate “the best” hand guns in a future issue. Is that in the plans?”

They never responded, and did not publish my letter.

Gee. What a surprise.


20 posted on 10/18/2010 5:01:30 PM PDT by 4Liberty ( How do you spell "moral hazard"?: $ 19, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0.)
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