Brady Condemns Trump Administration’s Removal of Surgeon General Advisory on Gun Violence from Department of Health & Human Services Website

The 2024 advisory from former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy named gun violence a public health crisis and called for evidence-based solutions.

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 17, 2025 — In part of the Trump administration’s purge of thousands of government webpages, the U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on gun violence was removed from the Department of Health & Human Services website. 

The release of the report had fulfilled one of the key objectives of Brady’s This Is Our Lane advisory council, which mobilizes thousands of healthcare professionals to prevent gun violence. The report also coincided with an original analysis conducted by Brady on the public health and economic impact of gun violence in the U.S. and the disparity in research funding between firearm injuries and other leading causes of death. 

Dr. Joseph Sakran, Brady chief medical officer and chair of Brady’s This Is Our Lane Advisory Council, said:

The removal of the 2024 Surgeon General’s advisory declaring firearm violence a public health crisis is just the latest in a series of dangerous, quiet rollbacks by the Trump administration that put American lives at risk. While Trump claims to be ‘tough on crime,’ his administration is actively restoring gun rights to domestic abusers, paving the way for untraceable ghost guns, empowering gun traffickers, and now erasing a public health approach to addressing the leading cause of death for children in this country.

Let me be clear: Firearm violence is a public health crisis, and deleting an advisory won’t change the brutal reality we see every day in our hospitals and communities. As we await details on Trump’s recent executive order threatening to ‘dismantle’ federal gun laws, we must remain vigilant and refuse to let these dangerous policies take hold in silence.