CMAJ should retract their flawed report on firearms injuries

On their website, the Canadian Medical Association Journal lists their vision statement as, “Best evidence. Best practice. Best health.”

Why then did the Journal publish a fear mongering paper this week that claims almost every day in Ontario a child or youth is injured by a firearm?

This paper has some serious flaws, so serious in fact that I think the CMAJ should retract it and issue an apology. That is if they actually believe in their vision statement of, “Best evidence. Best practice. Best health.”

While the study was published by the CMAJ it actually was written by a number of doctors representing Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.

The paper muddies the water between what a child is and what an adult is when counting injuries and it includes injuries from paintball guns which, whatever you think of them, are not firearms by any legal or common sense definition.

When most of us see a study, put out by pediatricians, about injuries among children and youth, most of us are probably thinking about little kids, or young teenagers. This study includes anyone that is 24 years of age or younger.

In fact for this study the authors only broke down age by splitting the subjects into two categories, under 15 and 15 to 24. Most of the injuries were in the 15 - 24 category.

When I asked the people behind the study for a better age breakdown, specifically how many were adults over the age of 18, they could not tell me.

Given that seven out of the 10 years in that cohort are 18-24, I’m willing to bet most of the injured in this study of children and youth were actually adults.

Then there is their sloppy definition of firearm. Despite what the authors may think, a paintball gun is not a firearm. Neither is a BB gun or an airsoft pistol.

But they are included in this study as a firearm. When I asked for a breakdown between real guns and paintball guns and the like, I was told that information was not available.

Asked on radio whether many of those injured could be 22 year-olds running around a paintball field at a bachelor party, Dr. Natasha Saunders took a long pause before admitting that could be the case.

When the purpose of the supposedly scientific paper is to look at injuries for children and youth from firearms how on earth can you not be able to breakdown ages, types of firearms or even the severity of the injuries?

If this is the best information the doctors had then perhaps they should have waited until they could have informed the public instead of just scaring them with false or incomplete information.

This paper was put out in conjunction with new guidelines on firearms from the Canadian Paediatric Society, an organization that calls for stricter gun laws and wants all doctors to ask parents if they have guns in the home and then warn them not to. Surely, this flawed study will be pointed to as evidence.

The political motivation of this paper and these new guidelines appears apparent, but not the evidence.

Dr. Diane Kelsall, the editor-in-chief of CMAJ, told me via email that she stood by her decision to publish the piece and called the organizations behind it, “world-class research institutions.”

As of deadline Dr. Kelsall has not answered specific questions about deficiencies in the study or her past links to ICES, the main group that produced the research.