Analysis | Doctors have joined the chorus for more gun restrictions

But doctors calling for stricter gun laws are facing a harsh reality. Not much has changed since that letter nearly a decade ago. Yesterday, 19 children and two adults were killed after a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex.

“We thought after Sandy Hook, that after you saw elementary schoolchildren massacred just like what you saw [yesterday], the country would do something,” said Bob Doherty, a senior vice president emeritus at the American College of Physicians. “We couldn’t even get a modest step to close some of the loopholes in our background check system.”

In recent years, a growing number of physicians have mobilized to lobby for tighter restrictions on guns, believing that telling stories of the trauma they see in the emergency room and beyond would spur public policy. In 2016, the largest doctors group — the American Medical Association — officially called gun violence a “public health crisis.”

But congressional efforts to change gun policies in any significant way have failed time and time again, despite lawmakers occasionally renewing their gun-control efforts in the days after a mass shooting, The Post’s Ashley Parker, Tyler Pager and Colby Itkowitz report. 

Hours after the Uvalde school shooting, President Biden urged Congress to end the “carnage” of violence, raising his voice as he asked, “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?”

Just over a week ago, a gunman killed 10 people at a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, while in California, a shooter killed one person and wounded five others in a Taiwanese church congregation.

In 2021, the number of “active shooter” attacks increased more than 50 percent from the previous year, according to an FBI report released this week.  

The Post’s Clyde McGrady:

Some doctors’ groups, like the American College of Physicians, have been pushing for action on gun violence for decades. But in 2018, doctor groups substantially upped their public engagement on the issue.

Physicians formed a social media movement, #ThisIsOurLane, after the National Rifle Association chided doctors for engaging in advocacy. Democrats embraced having doctors on their side, believing they brought a certain credibility to the issue and had clout with Republicans. 

• But several years later … “I think people are incredibly, incredibly frustrated,” said Joseph Sakran, the director of emergency general surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and founder of @ThisIsOurLane. 

Sakran detailed a laundry list of incomplete actions in an interview last night. This included universal background checks; “red flag” laws that would let authorities keep guns away from those deemed to represent a threat; more funding for research on gun violence than the current $25 million first greenlit in 2019; confirmation of a permanent director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (who has a confirmation hearing before the Senate today) and more. 

This is similar to some of the major policy recommendations from over 40 physicians’ organizations, such as the American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association. 

The aftermath of Sandy Hook was the closest lawmakers have come in the last decade to passing any changes to the nation’s gun laws. But still, a modest bill to strengthen background checks failed in the Senate, The Post’s Colby Itkowitz, Marianna Sotomayor and Mike DeBonis report. 

The friction between the two parties was palpable last night. Democrats assailed Republicans over their resistance to gun measures, while some in the GOP expressed skepticism with Democrats’ legislative efforts. And as our colleagues at The Early 202 write, there’s plenty of reasons for skepticism that Congress will do anything.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) moved yesterday to put two gun control bills on the Senate calendar. The House passed both measures, which would establish a universal background check for commercial gun sales and extend the time to perform a federal background check. But Schumer’s move doesn’t mean the chamber will definitely vote on the bills opposed by Republicans, Mike notes.

After the Buffalo attack, the House passed a measure to expand the ability of federal agencies to track and analyze any domestic-terrorism activity, including white supremacy groups. The Senate will vote this week on the bill, but it likely won’t garner enough GOP support to pass. 

Democrats refocus attention on drug prices after Oregon primary shake-up

A potential loss of a moderate House Democrat who broke with scores of his colleagues on legislation to lower prescription drug prices has lit a fire under members of his party to deliver on one of their central promises before the midterm elections, Mike reports.

Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) trails primary challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who made the congressman’s opposition to the party’s signature drug pricing bill a centerpiece of her campaign. 

Among key Democrats, there’s a growing sense of desperation that action is necessary on drug prices before the midterms. Schrader’s tough election shows voters are frustrated with inaction and are willing to punish those who appear to stand in the way. 

So, what was Schrader’s position? Last year, he was among a handful of Democrats who played a key role in narrowing the party’s drug pricing bill. He’s previously argued that the version he helped craft served as a rescue effort, believing his alternative has the votes to pass the Senate. The policies allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drugs were included in the House-passed economic package, but have since languished in the Senate.  

The Manchin factor: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has said he can’t support the larger social spending bill the House passed last year. But he has maintained openness to drug pricing legislation for months, telling Mike in a brief interview last week that drug pricing would be “the easy lift” in any package that comes together.

Jamie Mcleod-Skinner (D), candidate to represent Oregon’s 5th Congressional District: 

CDC: Covid-19 rebound after Paxlovid is possible, quarantine necessary

Coronavirus patients treated with Pfizer’s antiviral drug who experience a recurrence of symptoms should re-isolate, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an advisory alert.

Recent reports indicated that Paxlovid recipients who relapse report testing positive again or experiencing mild symptoms between two and eight days after their initial recovery from covid-19, regardless of vaccination status. Patients should then restart isolation and isolate for at least five days. There have been no documented cases of severe disease so far among those who have rebounded. 

The oral drug is still recommended for early-stage treatment of mild to moderate covid-19 among individuals at heightened risk for progression of severe disease.

Bob Wachter, physician and chair of University of California at San Francisco’s Department of Medicine:

As monkeypox spreads, doctors in Africa see a double standard

The virus was first discovered five decades ago in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and is typically found in West and Central Africa. Infectious-disease experts across the continent are bothered at a double standard: Few people seemed to care, or pay attention, to monkeypox until those in the West started getting sick, our colleagues Danielle Paquette and Rael Ombuor write.

There weren’t global alarm bells when African nations battled outbreaks in recent months. 

“The Democratic Republic of Congo has been battling the world’s largest outbreak by far: at least 1,238 cases and 57 deaths since January. The strain found there is also much more deadly, with a fatality rate as high as 10 percent. Many deaths are preventable, doctors said, but treatment can be hard to find in areas with underfunded hospitals,” Danielle and Rael write.

• A winner has not been called in the primary run-off to unseat the House’s last antiabortion Democrat. As of this morning, incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar holds a narrow lead over Jessica Cisneros to be Democratic candidate in Texas’s 28th Congressional District.
• U.S. births rose last year for the first time since 2014, a notable shift from a decline reported in the early days of the pandemic, according to newly released data from the CDC.
• A new omicron subvariant, BA.2.12.1 has now surpassed BA.2 as the dominant strain of the coronavirus circulating throughout the United States, according to the CDC.
• It will be up to state officials and manufacturers to decide whether baby formula imported from overseas to address the severe supply shortages will be made available for families who rely on government discounts to make it affordable, Reuters reports.

Pelosi challenges archbishop’s denial of Communion over abortion rights (By Donna Cassata and John Wagner | The Washington Post)

The Blackfeet Nation’s Plight Underscores the Fentanyl Crisis on Reservations (Aaron Bolton l Kaiser Health News)

Nearly 106,000 U.S. residents are waiting for a lifesaving transplant (By Linda Searing | The Washington Post)

Thanks for reading! See y’all tomorrow.