US government cuts imperil lifesaving gun violence research. As doctors, we fear for the future | Jessica Beard and Elinore Kaufman
Mar 28, 2025
The jeopardy over our country’s work remains, and we’re bracing ourselves for a scary situation we know all too wellWe don’t have a reliable count for how many people have been shot in the United States this year. We don’t know how many were shot last year either. Or the year before that. Th
ese most basic numbers should inform our gun violence prevention efforts. But they don’t exist.This is the void of information that is created and persists when critical research is suppressed.Dr Jessica Beard is the director of research for the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting, a Stoneleigh Foundation Fellow, and director of trauma research at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University; Dr Elinore Kaufman is the research director for the division of trauma at the University of Pennsylvania and chair of the Pennsylvania Trauma System Foundation Research Committee. Both are trauma surgeons in Philadelphia. Continue reading... ...read more read less