Arthur Kellermann
From Freepedia
Arthur L. Kellermann, M.D., M.P.H. is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine and Director of the Center for Injury Control of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University School of Medicine, as well as co-chair of the Committee on the Consequences of Uninsurance of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Since arriving at Emory University, Dr. Kellermann established the identity of the Center for Injury Control and built strong links with various organizations and government agencies throughout Georgia. He has published over 50 papers on various aspects of emergency cardiac care, health services research and the role of emergency departments in the provision of health care to the poor.
However, Kellermann is best known for his landmark research on the epidemiology of firearm related injuries and deaths, which has generated a firestorm of criticism from firearm rights activists, much of it centered around Kellerman's refusal to publish his data or submit to peer review. Kellerman's study was widely perceived as a political hatchet-job attacking gun ownership and resulted in the Center for Disease Control temporarily having its funding cut by Congressmen friendly to the National Rifle Association.
Although Kellermann claims not to be an anti-gun zealot ("I grew up around guns," he says. "My dad taught me how to shoot when I was eleven or twelve years old. Firearms are fascinating pieces of equipment. I enjoy the sport of shooting, although I rarely shoot anymore."), his studies have earned him the wrath of the National Rifle Association and other gun-friendly organizations and individuals because they perceive that his work is biased and inteded to serve as propoganda rather than legitimate academic research.
In 1986, he published the study for which he is best known. It examined gunshot deaths in Seattle over a six-year period, he found that "even after the exclusion of firearm-related suicides, guns kept at home were involved in the death of a member of the household eighteen times more often than in the death of an intruder." He excludes all self defense gun uses which do not involve the death of an assailant (elsewhere shown to be 99% of all self defense incidents). Similarly, he defines "member of the household" and "acquaintance" such that it would include rival gang members and other intruders who are known to the victim. Even if the only gun involved in a fatal shooting was a gun brought by an intruder, he admittedly includes this in his proof of the risks of gun ownership. Further examination of his work is impossible because he refuses to completely release his source data for review.
To his credit, and a point that is universally over-looked by the gun-control lobby, Kellerman himself, in the summary to his study, stated that the "link" he found between gun-ownership and "increased risk" of death may actually be a case of "reversed causation" effect and that his study methods could not be used to determine if this was the case. Kellerman admitted (in the oft cited study itself) that it's equally likely that the "link" he found to increased risk of death for gun-owners was actually caused by other factors in the persons life and that these other risk factors were what prompted the person to obtain a gun in the first place.
In 1986, Kellermann and several colleagues published a study that compared handgun regulations and handgun homicide and assault in Vancouver, Canada, a city that had adopted "a more restrictive approach to the regulation of handguns," and Seattle. The study found that "the rate of assaults involving firearms was seven times higher in Seattle than in Vancouver."
In 1993, Kellermann was the lead investigator in a case-control study that looked at all homicides occurring in the victims' homes in Cleveland, Memphis, and Seattle, over five years. The results showed that such homicides occurred nearly three times more often in homes where guns were kept than in otherwise comparable control homes where there was no gun.
Both the methodology of these studies and the bias of the author have been criticized by advocates of gun rights.
- Kellermann AL. and Reay DT. "Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearms-Related Deaths in the Home." N Engl J. Med 1986. 314: 1557-60.
- Kellermann AL, Rivara FP, Rushforth NB et al. "Gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home." N Engl J Med. 1993; 329(15): 1084-91.
- Sloan JH, Kellermann AL, Reay DT, et al. "Handgun Regulations, Crime, Assaults, and Homicide: A Tale of Two Cities." N Engl J Med 1988; 319: 1256-62.
- Kellermann AL, Rivara FP, Somes G, et al. Suicide in the Home in Relationship to Gun Ownership. N Engl J Med. 1992; 327: 467-72.
- Kellermann AL and Mercy JA. "Men, Women, and Murder: Gender-specific Differences in Rates of Fatal Violence and Victimization." J Trauma. 1992; 33:1-5.
