HPH Weekly: The role of child gun safety laws in curbing school shootings

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The role of child gun safety laws in curbing school shootings

The number of school shootings in the U.S. has shot up 600 percent over the last decade, writes Michael Rosenbaum, with more than 300 in 2023. The majority of the perpetrators are children—specifically, kids who found it easy to access a gun. Children’s brains aren’t fully developed, Rosenbaum says, and if we don’t trust them to rent a car or drink alcohol, “how can they be old enough to walk around with a … 9mm handgun?” Child access protection laws, he argues, are necessary to prevent kids from perpetrating gun violence against others—and themselves.

What does a chief social impact officer in public health do?

What does a chief social impact officer do at a school of public health? At UC Berkeley School of Public Health, its first ever CSIO, Claudia Williams, says her job is about reclaiming the activist spirit of the field. The former Obama official says she aims to “shrink the distance between what we learn in school and how we can apply it.”

FDA privately rejected Philips’s claims that recalled CPAP machines were safe

After a recall of its CPAP machines, Philips assured patients using them wouldn’t “result in long-term health consequences.” The FDA emailed the company to reject the tests used to make the safety claims, according to ProPublica and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Their story reveals the agency did not extend its warning beyond these private emails, even as patients across the country continued using the recalled machines.

This story was originally published by ProPublica and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

What we’re reading this week

• A scholar of gun policy says his field has gotten it wrong | The Boston Globe
• Oklahoma’s proposed wastewater bill isn’t about health or the environment | Environmental Health News
• Colorado legal settlement would up care and housing standards for trans women inmates | KFF Health News
• Lead makes us sicker and less safe. So why do leaders overlook it? | MLK50: Justice Through Journalism
• Is climate change making menopause symptoms more severe in India? | Global Health Now