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CHICAGO -- The American Academy of Family Physicians joined with the American Medical Association's (AMA) Minority Affairs Section and its Young Physicians Section, along with several other groups, to demand that Congress lift its ban on funding gun violence research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The coalition, which formed quickly in the hours following the Sunday morning massacre of 50 people at an Orlando night club, presented its demand in the form of a late resolution to the AMA's House of Delegates, the policy-making body of the AMA.
The resolution reads, "Resolved, that our AMA immediately make a public statement that gun violence represents a public health crisis which requires a comprehensive public health response and solution, and be it further resolved that our AMA actively lobby Congress to lift the gun violence research ban."
The AMA House of Delegates agreed on Monday to discuss the resolution at its meeting on Tuesday.
AAFP president Wanda Filer, MD, MBA told ľֱ that many delegates had skipped the customary Sunday evening AMA festivities, in order to have a hand in drafting resolutions in response to Orlando. Those efforts, she said, coalesced into a single draft.
In addition to the resolution, the AAFP, along with the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; and the American Psychiatric Association, issued a press release and a video assailing the lack of federally funded gun violence research.
"We said the names of the places change, but there is a sameness to all of these events and we are always left burying the innocent," Filer said. "And what is the common denominator? Gun violence."