Joe Garofoli on doctor taking on NRA.
Friday started typically for Judy Melinek. The San Francisco forensic pathologist called into work and learned that she had one gunshot victim to autopsy. Often, there are more.
Before she left, she looked again at the tweet that incensed her. The 154,000-member American College of Physicians had just issued new guidelines for doctors to protect patients from gun violence, but the National Rifle Association wasn’t impressed. A tweet sent from the NRA’s political arm said: “Someone should tell
self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane.”
Melinek responded with a tweet that may be remembered as the rallying cry of a white coat revolution: “Do you have any idea how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly? This isn’t just my lane. It’s my f— highway.”
Melinek’s tweet, as a pathologist might put it, went viral.
Part of the reason was because just hours after the NRA’s tweet was posted, another mass shooting had rocked the nation. A gunman armed with a handgun and a high-capacity magazine killed 12 people in a country music club in Thousand Oaks. Melinek’s outrage melded with those of other doctors who believe gun violence should be treated as a public health issue.
So they bonded online under the hashtag #ThisIsOurLane. Some posted photos of themselves splattered with the blood of gunshot victims they’ve treated — or, like Melinek, autopsied. One posted a photo of a heart ripped apart by gunfire. It was a sign that more doctors are ready to do something they often avoid: get politically active.
There is precedent for this kind of stethoscope advocacy. Earlier generations of doctors took on the automobile industry by advocating for seat belts to reduce car accident deaths. Other physicians stood up to the tobacco industry, helping to cut U.S. smoking rates to record-low levels.
“We do our jobs every single day, and our job is to be an expert on what bullets do to bodies,” Melinek, a 49-year-old mother of four, told me this week. “We’re the ones who are called to the scene (of homicides). We are the ones who testify in court about the pain and suffering that happens because of gun violence. We’re the ones who see the consequences of lax gun policies.”
Melinek stresses two things: Neither she nor the physicians group wants to ban guns or infringe on Second Amendment rights. She does not own a gun, but has fired all kinds of weapons as part of her medical training to learn what their impact can be.
More important, she says, “we didn’t start this fight.”
The NRA’s tweet was responding to the report from the American College of Physicians last month that updated its recommendations for how to reduce gun-related deaths. The organization represents general practice physicians.
“Firearm violence continues to be a public health crisis in the United States that requires the nation's immediate attention,” the organization wrote in its new guidelines, which were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
The organization now supports laws that would prohibit people with a history of domestic violence from buying and possessing firearms. It also supports laws allowing family members to seek an immediate court order to remove guns from those deemed at risk of shooting themselves or someone else — a law that California has already enacted, but is seldom used.
Melinek and her fellow medical professionals would also like to see the federal government conduct research into gun violence, just like it does into auto-related fatalities. But that is virtually banned, thanks to the power of the NRA in Washington.
In 1996, the gun rights group advocated for the Dickey Amendment. Named for the late Rep. Jay Dickey, R-Ark., the measure banned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using money to “advocate or promote gun control.” Although it didn’t explicitly ban federal research, the law has essentially chilled it ever since.
Years later, Dickey said he regretted his decision and called for more research into gun violence.
“I wish I had not been so reactionary,” he said.
Former President Barack Obama signed an executive order directing the National Institutes of Health to study gun violence, but that program ended in 2017 and hasn’t been renewed. The reason is rooted in the political power of the NRA.
In 2016, the NRA contributed $55 million toward political candidates, including $31 million in support of President Trump. In the midterm elections, its contributions helped defeat Democratic Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Joe Donnelly of Indiana.
But Melinek is not afraid of speaking out.
She is ready to tell the world what she has seen in the more than 300 autopsies she has conducted of gunshot victims over the past two decades, half of them suicides. It is emotionally wrenching to see the names of loved ones tattooed on victims’ bodies or find photos of spouses and children in their wallets. Sometimes, their cell phones will ring with calls from people who don’t know they’ve been shot.
Few professions can speak personally to both the human and emotional carnage caused by gun violence and the science behind it. But Melinek acknowledged that doctors are sometimes reluctant advocates. Many avoid partisan politics. Some might not want to risk offending their gunowning, law-abiding patients. Others might not want to alienate a major hospital donor who is gun-friendly.
“I think that physicians have to take on the NRA if they can,” Melinek said. Doctors “have been able to lobby about insurance coverage and about the Affordable Care Act. I don’t see any difference in lobbying for this.”
As soon as the new Congress is seated, Melinek said, “I know my first call will be to Nancy Pelosi.” Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli