{"id":62,"date":"2014-03-01T21:18:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-02T01:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=62"},"modified":"2014-03-01T21:18:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-02T01:18:00","slug":"rand-paul-blocks-surgeon-general-nominee-for-saying-gun-violence-is-a-public-health-threat-thinkprogress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=62","title":{"rendered":"Rand Paul Blocks Surgeon General Nominee For Saying Gun Violence Is A Public Health Threat | ThinkProgress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/health\/2014\/02\/26\/3332741\/rand-paul-hold-murthy-guns\/\">Rand Paul Blocks Surgeon General Nominee For Saying Gun Violence Is A Public Health Threat | ThinkProgress<\/a><\/p>\n<p><i>Rand Paul, of course, has no concept of a physician&#8217;s duty to help safeguard the health of actual people, both on an individual and population (public health) basis.<\/i><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cAs a physician, I am deeply concerned that he has advocated that <br \/>doctors use their position of trust to ask patients, including minors, <br \/>details about gun ownership in the home\u2026 Dr. Murthy has disqualified <br \/>himself from being Surgeon General because of his intent to use that <br \/>position to launch an attack on Americans\u2019 right to own a firearm under <br \/>the guise of a public health and safety campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Paul is actually out of step with most physicians. The idea that <br \/>gun violence is a danger to public health is utterly uncontroversial <br \/>among <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/health\/2014\/02\/25\/3326401\/docs-kids-depression-screening\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">doctors\u2019 groups<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.press.umich.edu\/158723\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">academic institutions<\/a> that focus on public health, and <a href=\"http:\/\/kidshealth.org\/parent\/firstaid_safe\/home\/gun_safety.html\">children\u2019s safety advocates<\/a>.<br \/>Although Paul criticizes Murthy\u2019s position that physicians and <br \/>pediatricians should ask patients about the presence of guns in their <br \/>households, the American Medical Association (AMA) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/MeetingCoverage\/AMA\/29731\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">adopted a resolution in 2011<\/a><br \/>officially opposing any law that bars doctors from having open <br \/>conversations about gun safety and the risks of having firearms in a <br \/>household with their patients.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, just yesterday, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) <br \/>issued new guidelines recommending that households with children who are<br \/>diagnosed with depression <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/health\/2014\/02\/25\/3326401\/docs-kids-depression-screening\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">should remove guns and ammunition from their homes<\/a> entirely.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rand Paul Blocks Surgeon General Nominee For Saying Gun Violence Is A Public Health Threat | ThinkProgress Rand Paul, of course, has no concept of a physician&#8217;s duty to help &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=62\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Rand Paul Blocks Surgeon General Nominee For Saying Gun Violence Is A Public Health Threat | ThinkProgress&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gun-violence"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}