Short Wave - The CDC, Its 'F-Word' (Firearms) & Suicide Prevention

Episode Date: November 22, 2019

Congress prohibits the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using any of its funding to promote or advocate for gun control. NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce looked into how that makes it difficult for the CDC to talk frankly about the role guns play in suicide. If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (En Español: 1-888-628-9454; Deaf and Hard of Hearing: 1-800-799-4889) or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. Follow host Maddie Sofia on Twitter @maddie_sofia. Email the show at [e-mail] pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, before we get started, a heads up that in this episode, we talk about suicide and gun violence. Just wanted you to know that going in. You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Maddie Safaya here with science correspondent Nell Greenfield Boys. Hello. So, Nell, today we're talking about what it means that the Centers for Disease Control, arguably the nation's top public health agency, doesn't like to talk about guns. This is something you started looking at last year after a big news, CDC report came out. That's right. It's a report on suicide in the United States. Specifically,

it was a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and it showed that suicide rates had been rising in nearly every state. The CDC put out an alarming report today on suicide. So this was a big deal. Half of the country has seen a more than 30 percent increase. It got a lot of press coverage. It is an epidemic and it does not hold back. And when I was covering it, I noticed something, something that seemed a little odd to me, which is just that guns were barely mentioned in the report. Okay, for reasons we'll get into, talking about gun violence is a tricky thing at the CDC. But it seemed weird to Nell that a big official government report on suicide barely even mentioned the most common way that suicides occur. All right, are you there?

Yes, I'm here. So you called somebody up at the CDC and you're basically like, why are you guys so hesitant to use? the word guns. Yeah, so it was the author of the report. Her name's Deborah Stone. She's a researcher at the CDC. And so I talked to her about her study and its findings. And then I asked her this. Were you told or did you deliberately not put in things like gun control legislation or specific references to reducing access to firearms because of the political concerns about that sort of thing in the CDC? We are concerned with all aspects of suicide prevention, including access to lethal means. And so we do include that in a comprehensive approach to suicide prevention. Even when you asked her directly about guns, she was like, yeah, lethal means. The term lethal means gets used a lot. And I wondered, you know, how can I find out what goes on at the CDC when they try to talk about guns?

So I filed a Freedom of Information Act request. So today on the show, what Nell found from that request for government documents and how the CDC talks or doesn't talk about guns and what that means for suicide prevention. Okay, now let's go back to 1996. That's when Congress passed something called the Dickey Amendment. That said the CDC could not do what. Basically, the CDC is not allowed to spend any of the money given to it by Congress for, quote, advocating or promoting gun control. And if they do, the fear is this could jeopardize their future funding. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of gun politics that we don't have time to get into here that led to the Dickey Amendment.

But the bottom line is, I've been told by people who've worked inside the CDC that the 1996 law has affected the way the agency talks about guns. Suicide is death by self-directed violence with an intent to die. For instance, if you go to the CDC's website and look at their materials on suicide prevention, you're not. You can watch a whole little video about suicide and it never mentions guns. People may be at risk for suicide if they have a family history of suicide, previous suicide attempts, social isolation, economic hardship, or a history of mental health problems, or alcohol and substance abuse. Yeah, well, that's everything but guns, I feel like.

So there's a fact sheet about preventing suicide. It doesn't mention guns. The term that they use over and over again is lethal means, quote, lethal means or, quote, lethal methods. And when I filed my fire request, I got some documents back that sort of suggested why that generic term was preferred. There were some text messages going back and forth between CDC workers. And one of them said that basically talking about restricting access to firearms would, quote, raise red flags. Oh, wow. The F word. They called it the F word. Firearms? Firearms, yes. So they are literally editing themselves internally before they're putting

this thing's out. And they're acknowledging like, oh, that's a red flag. We can't say that. I mean, if you ask the CDC directly, I did ask to interview someone at the CDC and my request was denied. I mean, the CDC spokesperson says they do their best to give the public, you know, the most sort of accurate, up-to-date, scientific, you know, evidence to protect their health. But I talked to someone who used to work at the CDC named Linda Degudis, and she was director of the agency's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. And she told you. told me, of course people there censor themselves. Like, they know they're not supposed to use the word gun or it could get Congress's attention

and potentially get the agency's funding in jeopardy. Being there at CDC, there were staff who would say you couldn't even say the word gun. And they would tell other people or even new people sometimes you can't say the word gun here. So when they do talk about the F word or guns, whatever you want to call them, what does the CDC kind of recommend in association with guns? What do they actually say about guns? They talk about safe storage. So that basically means, you know, locking up your guns and ammunition so that people, suicidal people can't get their hands on it.

And there's some evidence that this is effective if you have, say, an adolescent who's suicidal living in the home. Right. But the problem is most suicides with guns happen when the owner of the gun turns it on himself or herself. Okay. And so the owner of the gun presumably can unlock the gun. And so, I mean, I spoke with one researcher who said he's. not aware of any research showing that locking up a gun prevents adult suicide. So what does the research about suicide tell us? Like if you can't use one thing, do you turn

to another thing? Like if you can't use a gun, do you turn to something else? That's what people say. They say, well, suicide is a mental health problem, not a gun problem, and that if people can't access guns, they'll use another method. What research shows is that if a method that people were wanting to use is not available, they typically don't switch to another. So one example would be in the United Kingdom, where people used to commit suicide by using gas ovens, for example. Once that gas became detoxified, the rates of suicide dropped dramatically. Same thing in some countries where a common form of suicide was pesticide ingestion. When those pesticides were banned, suicide rates dropped dramatically. And by dramatic decreases, I mean like 30,

50%. Wow. Okay. So what's a practical effect of the CDC kind of tiptoeing around using the word guns? Well, I asked Linda Deghutis this. And she says that, you know, you're trying to address something without sort of talking about one of the major factors. If you say lethal means, she said people may not even understand that term. Right. Because if you're not saying like firearms are the number one cause of suicide or the number one use, then it's like, oh, like firearms and medications, you know what I mean? When they just like lump them together and lethal means, I wouldn't be thinking like one of these is much more prevalent than the other. Well, firearms are about half, right? And the other half is like everything else. Right. So, I mean, certainly they're not the only means of suicide, but the thing is they are so

lethal. I mean, guns are designed to be lethal. And so unfortunately, if someone chooses to use a gun to attempt suicide more likely than not they die. All right. So this is obviously a pretty complicated situation. Gun safety messages matter most of the people that own guns. So the CDC needs to reach gun owners, but in a way that doesn't isolate them, right? I mean, that's a challenge no matter what. You know, you have to find a way to seriously talk about the dangers posed by guns that we know about from suicide research

while not turning off the audience that most needs to hear them, namely the gun owners. And that is a real tricky task. And then for the CDC, layered on top of that, they have the Dickey Amendment, which just makes them uncomfortable talking about guns in general. And so when you put all this together in the realm of suicide prevention, in this country particularly where suicide has a very large link to guns, it just makes for a very complicated and difficult situation in terms of bringing those numbers of suicides down. Okay. Last question now. If the CDC could talk more freely about guns and suicide, what might they say? Well, for example, their guide to suicide prevention for states and communities might have included, like, a discussion of the research on things like red flag laws to take guns away from people who are going through crisis or maybe the effect of waiting periods or licensing requirements. Or maybe people would get the idea that if a loved one is experiencing a mental health crisis, or going through really difficult economic times or something that might make them seem more troubled than usual, maybe it's a good idea to like hold their gun for them, to offer to get the gun just

out of the house for a while. All right. Now, thank you for coming by and bringing us this important story. Thank you. Before we go, we want to say that suicide is preventable. If you are in a crisis or know somebody who is, please call the suicide prevention lifeline. call 1-800-273-8255, or text 8255 to 741-741. This episode was produced by Brent Bachman and edited by Viet Le.

I'm Maddie Safaya, and thanks for listening to Shortwave from NPR.