The CDC’s Injury Center Is Gone. Guess Who Pays the Price? Kids.
The CDC’s Injury Center Is Gone. Guess Who Pays the Price? Kids.
If you needed more proof that Republican politicians don’t actually care about kids, here it is. The CDC’s Injury Center—the office responsible for preventing children from dying from entirely preventable causes—is getting the axe. You read that right. The leading cause of death for children in America is gun violence, and instead of addressing the crisis, our so-called leaders decided to eliminate the very research that helps prevent it.
Make it make sense.
What the Injury Center Actually Did (Before They Killed It)
For decades, the CDC’s Injury Center has been doing the unglamorous but absolutely necessary work of tracking injuries and deaths—especially those caused by guns. You know, little things like:
Studying the root causes of gun violence and identifying proven prevention strategies
Helping states and cities develop data-driven solutions
Collecting actual facts to combat the misinformation that fuels bad policies
And now, all that work will come to a grinding halt. The people in power have decided they’d rather remain ignorant than admit that research-backed policies could save lives.
This Isn’t “Fiscal Responsibility.” It’s Negligence.
For an administration that loves to preach about keeping kids safe, this is a slap in the face to those of us actually doing the work to keep kids safe. Over 80% of the Injury Center’s funding went directly to states, local governments, and nonprofits—to people who wake up every day and work to break cycles of violence. Cutting this funding doesn’t just stop research. It actively makes our communities more dangerous.
And let’s talk about mental health since politicians love using it as a scapegoat after every mass shooting. We keep hearing about how important it is to protect kids' well-being, but do you know what else the Injury Center did? It tracked suicide rates among teens, helped states respond to suicide clusters, and funded strategies to prevent deaths by suicide. Because, guns are involved in over half of youth suicides. But sure, let’s just stop studying that, too.
The Reality: More Deaths, More Grieving Families
Gun violence kills 125 people every single day in this country. If you take away the research, the experts, and the programs designed to prevent it, guess what happens? More deaths. More trauma. More grieving families. More communities shattered.
For an administration that claims to care about reducing violent crime, this is an absolute disgrace. And before anyone tries to spin this as a “tough budget decision,” let’s be real: this isn’t about saving money. It’s about silencing science that doesn’t align with certain political narratives. It’s about ensuring billionaires like Elon Musk keep getting tax cuts while children are left to die.
So, What Do We Do Now?
We fight like hell.
We hold our elected officials accountable. We commit to supporting gun sense candidates who will work to make our communities safer. We support groups like Everytown and Moms Demand Action who are stepping up to fill the gap. We push for real investment in research-backed solutions that keep kids safe. We talk to our friends, families and neighbors about proven prevention strategies like secure storage.
And to my fellow public health leaders who are watching this in horror: silence is complicity. It’s time to get off the sidelines. Use your platform. Talk about evidence-based solutions like secure storage. Share the research. Call out the hypocrisy. Chaos and misinformation thrive when we remain silent. We have no time to waste.
The people who made this decision may want us to give up. But here’s the thing: we’re not going anywhere. And we sure as hell aren’t backing down.