February 27, 2018—Unfurling a banner reading “Gun reform is healthcare reform,” students, faculty, researchers, and physicians from the Harvard-affiliated schools and hospitals of the Longwood Medical area gathered on the steps of Harvard Medical School’s Gordon Hall on February 27, 2018 to stand in solidarity with the victims of gun violence.
In opening remarks, Harvard Medical School student and organizer Shivangi Goel, MD ’21, said that she hoped the event would inspire the assembled public health and medical practitioners to take action, and noted that a petition was being passed to repeal the Dickey Amendment, a provision passed in 1996 bill that forbade the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from using money to “advocate or promote gun control.”
Harvard Chan School student Chana Sacks, MPH ’18, whose cousin was among the children killed during the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 told the crowd that she was encouraged by the recent surge in outrage and activism around preventing gun violence. Sacks, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and a researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said that it is up to health professionals who understand the devastating effects of gun violence to keep this issue in the news on an ongoing basis, not just in the wake of tragedies such as this month’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Photos: Sarah Sholes
Learn more
In Memory of Daniel — Reviving Research to Prevent Gun Violence (NEJM Perspective by Chana Sacks)
Federal funding needed for gun violence research (Harvard Chan School news)
At gun violence press conference, students, mothers call for action (Harvard Chan School news)