Tag Archives: Center for Disease Control

Civil Liberties, Government Accountability, Gun Rights, Politics, US

Unpublished CDC Study Supports Claim Of Over 2 Million Yearly Defensive Gun Uses

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[Editor’s note, April 27th, 2018, 10: 15 am EST: Gary Kleck has removed his research paper online. According to Reason, it was pointed out by National Review’s Robert VerBruggen “that Kleck treats the CDC’s surveys discussed in this paper as if they were national in scope, as Kleck’s original survey was, but they apparently were not. From VerBruggen’s own looks at CDC’s raw data, it seems that over the course of the three years, the following 15 states were surveyed: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. (Those states, from 2000 census data, contained around 27 percent of the U.S. population.)

Informed of this, Kleck says he will recalculate the degree to which CDC’s survey work indeed matches or corroborates” his own studies. An earlier version of Kleck’s paper, published April 25, can be seen here.]

Washington, D.C. – An unpublished study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) supports Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck’s claims from his 1990s study that indicated there were more than two million defensive handgun uses (also known as DGUs) per year in the United States.

Breitbart reported that “since the early 1990s, Kleck has maintained that there is a minimum of 760,000 DGUs annually. That is his low estimate; Kleck and research partner Marc Gertz have contended the actual number is closer to 2.5 million.” Although Kleck conducted what some have called the most thorough survey of the subject during the 1990s, his findings were disputed. In February 2015, Kleck doubled down his findings and noted that while there were plenty of critics of his work, none have been able to counter his findings with empirical evidence.

While the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is prohibited from using Congressional funding on research that aims “to advocate or promote gun control,” during the 1990s the CDC engaged in research that examined the frequency of innocent Americans using guns for self-defense, and the level of harm from guns used by violent criminals. Kleck recently announced that he has found unpublished data from the CDC.

Kleck’s controversial claims that there were more than 2.2 million defensive gun uses (DGUs) in the United States each year, has now been bolstered by the previously unpublished CDC study. Nonetheless, NPR, citing the National Crime Victimization Survey’s lower estimate of around 100,000 DGUs annually, revisited the DGU controversy last week, apparently oblivious to the existence of the CDC surveys.

In Kleck’s latest research paper, titled “What Do CDC’s Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses?”, Kleck claimed that in 1996, 1997, and 1998 the CDC specifically asked about DGUs in its Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.

Kleck summarized in his paper:

In 1996, 1997, and 1998, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
conducted large-scale surveys asking about defensive gun use (DGU) in four to six states.
Analysis of the raw data allows the estimation of the prevalence of DGU for those areas.
Estimates based on CDC’s surveys confirm estimates for the same sets of states based on data
from the 1993 National Self-Defense Survey (Kleck and Gertz 1995). Extrapolated to the U.S.
as a whole, CDC’s survey data imply that defensive uses of guns by crime victims are far more
common than offensive uses by criminals. CDC has never reported these results.

A report from Reason magazine quoted Kleck’s reaction to the unpublished CDC study; he explained that a figure of 2.46 million DGUs a year “[implies] that guns were used defensively by victims about 3.6 times as often as they were used offensively by criminals.”

Health, International, US

First Ebola related death in the US confirmed

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The first Ebola patient in the US has died at 7:51 a.m. on Wednesday, reports say.

Thomas Duncan, 42, was a Liberian man who had recently traveled to Africa, and was the first US citizen to have contracted the deadly virus.  Duncan died while in isolation care at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

“It is with profound sadness and heartfelt disappointment that we must inform you of the death of Thomas Eric Duncan this morning at 7:51 am,” said a spokesman from the hospital in Dallas, according to the BBC.

In recent days, the New York Times reports Duncan’s condition had worsened from serious to critical condition.  Medical staff were on hand to support Duncan after this with fluids and electrolytes to replenish the lose of fluids which occurs when one is infected with Ebola.  Duncan was also being treated with an experimental drug, called brincidofovir, to help combat the virus.

Upon returning from his trip to Africa, Duncan went to the hospital complaining of a stomach ache and fever, but hospital staff failed to test for Ebola on this visit and sent Duncan home.  It was only days later when Duncan returned to the hospital that the virus was found to be in Duncan’s system.

According to CNN, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Thomas Frieden, offered his condolences to the Duncan family after this death.  “He is a face that we associate now with Ebola,” said Frieden.

According to the same report, in order to help prevent the spread of Ebola, the body of Duncan will be cremated.

As of now, Duncan’s family members and close to 50 other Dallas residents are being monitored after having come into either first or second degree contact with Duncan after he returned from Africa.

Health, International, US

About 100 people were in contact with Dallas Ebola patient

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Health officials in Texas are now reporting the patient in Dallas who has contracted the Ebola virus, has been in contact with approximately 100 people.

Erikka Neros, spokeswoman for the Dallas County Health and Human Services Department has said there are between 12 and 18 people who were in direct contact with the patient, while the number of “contact traces” is now 80.

All of those who came into some sort of contact with Thomas Duncan, the Ebola patient in question, are being monitored closely.

Carrie Williams, the Texas Department of State Health Services, said in a statement, according to NPR, “Out of an abundance of caution, we’re starting with this very wide net, including people who have had even brief encounters with the patient or the patient’s home. The number will drop as we focus in on those whose contact may represent a potential risk of infection.”

Initially, the number of those who came in contact with Duncan was closer to 18 people, according to RT.

An early report from the Dallas Morning News said Duncan arrived at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Sept. 25.  He told health staff at the time he was suffering from fever and stomach aches, and he had recently been to Liberia, one of the Ebola stricken nations in Africa.

CDC guidelines say Duncan should have been placed in isolation and tested for Ebola immediately, but the news of Duncan’s travel did not reach key medical staff at the hospital.  As a result, Duncan was given a combination of antibiotics and then sent home, according to FOX News.

The family of Duncan are amongst those being monitored, and Texas health officials have quarantined the family.  They are not allowed, under a state “control order,” to leave their home or have any contact with anyone outside of their home for 21 days, and all family members must be available at all times for health tests, according to USA Today.

If any of the family members break this “control order,” they could potentially face criminal charges.