Harvard Injury Control Research Center
Our mission is to reduce the societal burden of injury and violence through surveillance, research, intervention, evaluation, outreach, dissemination, and training.
Physicians Gag Order
This commentary discusses the serious problems with the Florida law making it an offense for pediatricians and other doctors to discuss firearms with their patients under many circumstances.
Murtagh, Lindsey; Miller, Matthew. Censorship of the patient-physician relationship: A new Florida law. JAMA. 2011; 306:1131-32.
A NEJM Perspective on the case of Wollschlaeger v. Governor of Florida describes the issues at stake in the upcoming decision concerning a Florida law which regulates physician’ speech concerning patients’ gun ownership. The full court can “jeopardize physicians’ ability to counsel patients about the importance of gun safety and potentially other important issues, or it can safeguard physicians’ ability to speak truthfully to patients, without compromising the state’s ability to regulate the practice of medicine.”
Parmet, Wendy: Smith, Jason; Miller, Matthew. Wollschlaeger v. Governor of Florida–The First Amendment, Physician Speech, and Firearm Safety. New England Journal of Medicine. 2016; 374 (24) 2304-07.
A NEJM Perspective describes the long-awaited US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit 10-1 decision that affirmed that the First Amendment applies to speech between doctors and patients. The court found no evidence “that routine questions to patients about the ownership of firearms are medically inappropriate, ethically problematic, or practically ineffective.” “We expect doctors to doggedly exhort unhealthy patients to exercise more, eat less, or stop smoking, even when such admonishments may ‘annoy persistently.’” A gun in the home substantially increases the risk of death to household members yet the majority of Americans are unaware of the heightened risk. Currently, most clinicians rarely if ever provide firearm-safety counseling. The Court ruled such counseling eminently legal. Now more physicians have to provide (scientifically based) advice about firearms.
Parmet, Wendy; Smith, Jason; Miller, Matthew. Physicians, firearms, and free speech – overturning Florida’s firearm-safety gag rule. New England Journal of Medicine. 2017; 376(20); 1901-03.