To date, neither the Triological Society nor the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery have issued a policy statement to address gun violence, but Dr. Pensak emphasized that generally the Triological Society is aligned with the American College of Surgeons (ACS). The ACS, he said, is one among numerous physician organizations that support a range of recommendations for reducing firearm violence. On June 2, 2022, the ACS held a news conference to outline important steps needed to accelerate an effective response to reduce violence from firearms (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Rtc7iqce2zY).
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September 2022Medical and science journal editors are also getting involved. In 2017, editors of journals within the JAMA Network, including JAMA Otolaryngology– Head & Neck Surgery, signed a joint editorial on addressing gun violence as a public health crisis and committing to providing policy makers with timely information to help guide interventions to reduce gun-related injuries and death (http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2657417). More recently, on May 22, 2022, editor-in-chief of the journal Science, H. Holden Thorp, PhD, argued that “scientists should not sit on the sidelines” and urged action to, in effect, push lawmakers to pass legislation for greater gun restrictions (http://science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.add1854). In June 2022, Eric J. Rubin, MD, PhD, editor-in chief of the New England of Journal of Medicine, joined colleagues in saying that physicians play a role in gun violence by becoming “effective agents of prevention” and detailing a number of activities to fulfill this role, such as advocating for funding and infrastructure “to support research aimed at reducing firearm-related injuries and deaths,” as well as to “use our voices to bring data to conversations about policy.” (http://nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2207552)
As healthcare professionals and, more importantly, as citizens, it is long past time to demand that all elected officials, regardless of political affiliation, make a commitment to common-sense and meaningful changes to reduce the impact of gun violence in the United States. —Stuart Sweet, MD
As editor-in-chief of Triological Society journal The Laryngoscope, Samuel H. Selesnick, MD, focused on the responsibilities of journal editors to accept high-quality studies and ensure that those that pass peer review are passed along to readers. For a journal like The Laryngoscope, this means, he said, welcoming all studies of high quality related to otolaryngology, including studies on trauma that could be related to gun violence. “It is the responsibility of editors-in-chief of otolaryngology journals to seek out and try to publish the highest quality evidence-based medical studies that have to do with gun violence in otolaryngology,” he said.