FODDER FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS

The federally funded Center for Disease Control has had its wings clipped by the U.S. House of Representatives. The CDC collects and reports data on countless diseases and other causes of death. These other causes of death include deaths by firearms, said by CDC officials to be implicated in approximately 40,000 deaths annually. Last week, the House voted to strip $2.6 million from CDC funding on the grounds its firearms-tracking was being used subtly to push for gun control.

Members of Congress discovered a CDC-funded newsletter that lobbied for gun control. In another, a CDC-funded study at Emory University concluded gun owners are far more likely to have loved ones shoot themselves than to shoot intruders. The study acknowledged it couldn't count how many times a gun scared off an intruder without fatality, injury or, in many cases, without even being fired. The research made headlines.

No government-funded research should have as its inspiration anyone's political agenda. This $2.6 million can doubtless be better spent elsewhere or, better still, be a part of overall budget savings.