CDC?s Hoax Health Alert
Agency Should Publish False Rumor Alert About Itself
by dischord
(distribution permitted and encouraged)

Please encouraged the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) to publish a health-hoax debunker much like those it posts at http://www.cdc.gov/hoax_rumors.htm about a false health risk rumor CDC IS HELPING TO SPREAD.

The web site for CDC?s National Center for Injury Prevention & Control (NCIPC) is spreading a misinforming factoid about firearms ? one that its own data trends, available on the same web site, disprove. These trends were widely reported in the press when they were released by NCIPC last week and in 1999, 1998, 1997 and 1996. They were commented upon by the agency each time.

The factoid ? at the ?About NCIPC? page (http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/about/about.htm) ? reads:
?Nine states and the District of Columbia in 1994 reported more deaths related to firearms than to motor-vehicle crashes. If this trend continues, by 2000 the national rate of death from firearms will surpass that from motor-vehicle crashes.?

This is the same factoid I identified last month in ?Voodoo Statistics.? Only this time, it is being pushed by the U.S. government rather than Handgun Control Inc. As such, it gives a greater air of authority to an absolutely wrong claim.

Just like HCI, CDC arrives at this prediction by stopping at 1994 data ? despite the existence of later data disproving the prediction. CDC recently updated this page, so cannot claim that this is an old page that ?fell through the cracks.? At the bottom, there is a notice that reads: ?This page last reviewed March 27, 2000.”

As of March 27, 2000, NCIPC had published death rate data through 1997. I will hold the agency to those data (though 1998 are since available). Let?s compare NCIPC?s figures for death rates (per 100,000 populations) for guns and cars since 1994:

______GUNS___CARS
1994__14.79__16.38
1995__13.68__16.54
1996__12.83__16.49
1997__12.12__16.29
1998__11.40__15.70

Let?s see, the 1997 data show guns killing about 75% as those killed by cars. Yet the from 1994 to 1997, gun deaths plummeted 18% while cars barely moved, dropping by only half a percent.

Guns kill fewer people than cars. Guns are dropping at a faster rate. The prediction is wrong.

I don?t know why the CDCers are maintaining this misleading information, but I would be no less disturbed if the reason simply were negligence. Whether due to negligence or deceitful intent, health trend misinformation is dangerous. Indeed, that is why CDC publishes its hoax debunkers.

In this case, this false rumor could lead the public into a misplaced sense of complacency about auto safety ? ?hey, it?s guns, not cars, we need to worry about now.?

NCIPC has a public health responsibility to put this misleading rumor to rest.

National Center for INJURY Prevention and Control
Mailstop K65
4770 Buford Highway NE
Atlanta, GA 30341-3724

Phone: 770.488.1506
Fax: 770.488.166
Email: [email protected]