The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has removed the 2024 Surgeon General’s advisory on gun violence from its website. A link to the Office of the Surgeon General’s publications on firearm violence now displays a “Page Not Found” message.
“HHS and the Office of the Surgeon General are complying with President Trump’s Executive Order on Protecting Second Amendment Rights,” HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said in an email Tuesday.
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Trump issued an executive order last month calling for the attorney general to “examine all orders, regulations, guidance, plans, international agreements, and other actions of executive departments and agencies” related to Second Amendment rights and all “Presidential and agencies’ actions from January 2021 through January 2025 that purport to promote safety but may have impinged on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.”
In June, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy declared in a major advisory that gun violence in the United States is a public health crisis and demanded urgent action, calling for more research and stronger laws to reduce harm.
The advisory was the first time a publication from the country’s leading voice for public health focused on firearm violence and its impact on public health.
There were 46,726 firearm-related deaths in the U.S. in 2023, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is just 4% fewer than the three-decade high reached in 2021, when 48,830 people died from firearms.
Trump’s pick to succeed Murthy as surgeon general, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, has not yet been scheduled for a confirmation hearing. Nesheiwat is a New York family physician and former Fox News medical contributor who was involved in a gun accident as a child that led to the death of her father, according to The New York Times.
CNN has reached out to Nesheiwat for comment.
Also known as “the nation’s doctor,” the surgeon general is a medical doctor who focuses on educating and advising Americans on how to improve their health by issuing advisories, reports, and calls to action to offer the best available scientific information on crucial issues.
