Maine:DHS creates smoking rules for foster homes, vehicles

bangordailynews.com ^ | 2-26-04 | Nok-Noi Hauger

[SheLion]

BANGOR - Protecting the lungs of little ones in foster care from the effects of secondhand smoke is the primary reason behind a new law in Maine." Secondhand smoke is really dangerous for kids," said Janet Spencer, director of Bangor Region Partners for Health. "Their lungs are in a developing stage and anything that is pulled into their lungs can potentially be harmful in the long run. In a lot of ways secondhand smoke is more harmful."

The law, which was enacted last fall, calls for the Maine Department of Human Services to "adopt rules on smoking by foster parents in family foster homes and in foster parents' private vehicles. The rules must include ways to protect foster children from secondhand smoke."

DHS drafted new smoking rules for a Jan. 1 deadline tied to the new smoking law and provisionally adopted the rules on Dec. 23, 2003. The Joint Standing Committee on Health and Human Services started to review the proposed rules on Jan. 7.

On Tuesday, the committee held a public hearing to review a revised draft of the rules, said Newell Augur, director of legislative and public affairs for the Department of Human Services. 

The rules need legislative approval before DHS can adopt them, said Jane Orbeton of the Office of Policy and Legal Analysis, because they are a mandated part of the new law.

"A work session will be held this coming Tuesday," she said. "At that point they'll [the committee] make the decision on whether to approve the rules, disapprove or approve with modifications."

The committee meeting is at 1 p.m. March 2 in Room 202 of the Cross Office Building in Augusta.

The committee's recommendations then would be brought to the floor of the House. 

The draft version of the rules is basic, said Augur.

"Smoking is prohibited in a foster home when a foster child is in placement," the proposed rules state.

The new rules also would prohibit smoking in vehicles whenever a foster child is present or within 24 hours of a foster child entering the vehicle. 

Under the new rules, foster parents would be allowed to smoke in their homes when foster children are absent from the home. However, "smoking is prohibited within 24 hours prior to their expected return."

There also would be a 24-hour restriction on smoking before the arrival of a foster child placed in respite care. The proposed new policy falls under the licensing rules for family foster homes for children.

The smoking law was weakened from the original version, which sought to impose a flat-out smoking ban in all foster family surroundings. The enacted version orders the DHS to adopt rules that take into account the rights of foster parents, said its sponsor, Rep. David Trahan, R-Waldoboro.

According to the Partnership for a Tobacco-Free Maine's Web site, one Mainer dies every day from exposure to secondhand smoke.

The new law passed during the first regular session of the 121st Legislature on June 13, 2003.

[cinFLA]

I raised four kids in a smoking household.

I feel for you kids.

[cinFLA]

A British study found that SIDS deaths could be reduced by two-thirds if parents did not smoke.***

A U.S. analysis** of over 100 reports on pædiatric diseases concluded that children’s exposure to tobacco smoke is responsible for up to:

13% of ear infection
(approximately 220,000 ear infections in Canadian children)*

26% of tympanostomy tube insertions
(approximately 16,500 in Canada)

24% of tonsillectomies and adenoidectomies
(approx. 2,100 Canadian operations)

13% of asthma cases
(approx. 52,200 cases in Canada)

16% of physician visits for cough
(approx. 200,000 visits in Canada)

20% of all lung infections in children under 5
(approx. 43,600 cases of bronchitis in Canada and 19,000 cases of pneumonia in Canada)

136-212 childhood deaths from lower respiratory infection
(approx. 13-20 in Canada)

148 childhood deaths from fires started by tobacco products
(approx. 15 in Canada)

1868-2708 SIDS deaths‡
(approx. 180-270 in Canada)

[cinFLA]

In 2002, there were 389,000 reported home fires in the United States, resulting in 2,670 deaths, 13,650 injuries and $5.9 billion in direct property damage.
The 2,670 home fire death total in 2002 was the lowest seen since NFPA began collecting this data in 1977. Since then, these deaths have fallen 54%, and the number of reported home fires has fallen 46% over the same period.
Nationwide, there was a home fire death every 170 minutes.
The statistics below are based on NFPA´s most recent analyses:

Smoking was the leading cause of home fire deaths overall, but in the months of December, January and February, smoking and heating equipment caused similar shares of fire deaths.

[Dan from Michigan]

So what.

[philetus]

Do we wait for conclusive proof that a child might be poisoned by smoke


After 2000 years, give or take, of parents smoking in the house with kids present, and no proof that it is bad for them, you ask if we wait until it kills one.

[philetus]

Keep your hands off my kids.

[cinFLA]

How smokers' beliefs differ from non-smokers'

A survey by University of Waterloo researchers showed that smokers were much less likely than non-smokers to believe that:

second-hand smoke hurts non-smokers (77% to 93%)
second-hand smoke caused lung cancer in non-smokers (54% to 79%)
And that they were much more likely to believe that:

air pollution is a greater health risk to non-smokers than second-hand smoke (51% to 35%)
people are too concerned about the effect of other people’s smoking (63% vs. 33%)
evidence of the dangers of second-hand smoke is exaggerated (46% vs. 32%)
[Rickert WS, Walker R, Brown KS, Cameron R. Environmental tobacco smoke in the home: Attitudes, beliefs and actions of smokers and non-smokers.]

[cinFLA]

Mom's Smoking Tied to Adult Children's Lung Disease

Reuters Health

By Amy Norton

Thursday, February 26, 2004


NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The effects of a mother's smoking on her children's lungs may be permanent, possibly furthering the risk of serious lung disease in children who take up the habit themselves, new research suggests.

The UK study found that the adult children of female smokers had smaller lung volumes compared with the children of non-smokers, regardless of whether they themselves smoked.

What's more, among adults who did smoke, those whose mothers smoked had a higher risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a group of serious lung diseases that includes emphysema.

The study, in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, looked at 2,000 men and women in their 30s, 40s and 50s whose parents had reported their own smoking habits in a study in the 1970s.

The children of women who in the earlier study said they were current smokers and had started before pregnancy were considered as having been exposed to maternal smoking. They were assumed to have been exposed in the womb.

Smoking during pregnancy is already tied to low birth weight and poorer infant and childhood growth, but research suggests that as children get older these effects may diminish, Dr. Mark N. Upton, the lead author of the new study, told Reuters Health.

Whether children can "grow out" of early effects on their lung volume has been unknown. To investigate Upton and his colleagues at the University of Bristol and University of Glasgow conducted respiratory tests that gauge lung volume, and found that participants exposed to maternal smoking appeared to have smaller lungs, regardless of their own smoking status.

"Our results suggest that the effects of maternal smoking on lung size are permanent," Upton said.

Moreover, if children take up smoking themselves, the findings suggest, a mother's smoking may add to the risk of their developing COPD. In this study, a smoker's risk of COPD climbed 70 percent with every 10 cigarettes his or her mother smoked per day.

According to Upton, the findings provide yet another reason for women to quit smoking before pregnancy, but also suggest that it's not "too late" to quit after giving birth.

That's because there was a relationship, albeit weak, between fathers' smoking and poorer lung function among smokers -- indicating that parents' smoking can cause long-range harm after birth as well.

In addition, Upton said, smokers who know their mothers were lighting up when they were young children should be aware that they may face a higher COPD risk. For these smokers, he added, believing "it will never happen to me" is now more difficult.

SOURCE: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, February 15, 2004.

[cinFLA]

Meeting Report
11/18/2002

Parents' smoke injures children's blood vessels



CHICAGO, Nov. 18 – Children with one parent who smoked in their presence had up to 50 percent higher levels of a biological marker of oxidative stress in their blood, Austrian researchers reported today at American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2002.

In another study on the effects of second-hand smoke, Japanese researchers sought to determine if short-term exposure to environmental tobacco smoke affected free-radical production in young, healthy nonsmokers.

Increasing evidence shows that second-hand smoke breaks down the antioxidant defenses, which is associated with impairment of the endothelial-dependent function of arterial walls. Endothelial dysfunction is an early feature of atherosclerosis, the disease process that underlies heart disease and stroke, and is an important marker of vascular damage.

Free-radicals, which are unstable molecules produced during a process called oxidation, can damage cells in the body. This damage is often called oxidative stress. It is significantly higher in children exposed to second-hand smoke.

To measure oxidation injury, the Austrian researchers examined levels of a biological compound called 8-epi-PGF2alpha in the blood and urine of 158 children (71 boys, 87 girls) ages 3 to 15. The compound is formed when free radicals attack arachidonic acid, a chemical whose normal function includes blood vessel dilation, blood clot prevention and inflammation reaction.

“It is a very potent blood vessel constrictor and may help create blood vessel spasm and set the stage for blood clot formation,” says senior researcher Helmut F. Sinzinger, M.D., of the University of Vienna in Austria.

Children were grouped according to the smoking levels of their parents, whether both parents were smoking at home, and according to the number of cigarettes smoked each day. Researchers compared results to those from a nonsmoking control group.

Blood and urinary 8-epi-PGF2alpha levels were elevated if children were exposed to second-hand smoke by smoking parents. “Even if exposed to the second-hand smoke from less than 20 cigarettes a day by one smoking parent, levels were elevated in plasma by 35 to 50 percent and in urine by 20 to 30 percent,” Sinzinger says.

Increasing the number of cigarettes smoked in the home correlated to higher levels of 8-epi-PGF2alpha, regardless of the child’s age or gender. Researchers found that if parents were together smoking more than 40 cigarettes a day, blood 8-epi-PGF2alpha was as much as 130 percent higher than that of the control group and urinary 8-epi-PGF2alpha was about 65 percent higher than in the control group. Further, smoking by the mother had a significantly more pronounced influence.

“We speculate that mothers may have closer contact with their children at home,” Sinzinger says. It’s too early to speculate on measures other than recommending parents not smoke when their children are present.

“It is well known that atherosclerotic lesions on vascular tissue are strongly correlated to risk factors that include cigarette smoking,” Sinzinger says. “Considering that in the United States and Western Europe nearly half of all children are exposed to second-hand smoke in some way, these findings could be of great importance. Later vascular disease might be triggered early in childhood by exposure to second-hand smoke.”

In the Japanese study, researchers recruited 12 non-smoking men, average age 30, with no history of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure or diabetes. They tested their levels of 8-epi-PGF2alpha and used ultrasound to measure endothelial function in subjects’ brachial artery before and after a 30-minute exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. Flow-mediated dilation (FMD) is an inexpensive and safe way to evaluate endothelial function. It measures changes in the amount of blood flow through a particular blood vessel.

The endothelium is the inner lining of blood vessels. This thin layer of cells helps vessels expand and contract in response to different amounts of blood flow. If these cells are damaged, the blood vessels will be “stiff” and less able to handle the body’s changing blood flow needs.

After exposure to tobacco smoke, the men’s blood levels of 8-epi-PGF2alpha significantly increased from an average of 20 picograms per milliliter (pg/mL) to 36 pg/mL. Their FMD decreased from 7.8 percent to 3.9 percent.

“These findings may add relevance to the idea that everyone should be protected from even short-term exposure to second-hand smoke,” says lead researcher Toru Kato, M.D., Ph.D., of the division of cardiology at Saitama Medical Center, Saitama Medical School in Japan.

Co-authors of the Japanese study are Shunichi Sato, M.D.; Toshihiko Nishioka; Mikio Yuhara; Yoshiro Inoue; Hiroyuki Ito; Yoshiaki Maruyama; Shugo Tanaka; and Nobuo Yoshimoto, M.D., Ph.D.

Co-authors of the Austrian study are Anthony Oguogho, M.D., and Heidemarie Pilz, M.D.

NR02 – 1172 (SS02/Sinzinger/Kato)
Abstracts 3631 & 3639

[philetus]

In the British study, if the kid came from a smokers home, it was attribited to second hand smoke. Even if it was something that ran in the family.

And I'm sure the poll was scientific.NOT

Non-smokers will almost always say smoking is bad.

[philetus]

You love junk science, don't you?

[cinFLA]

You love junk science, don't you?

Since you cannot refute the facts, you resort to slurs.

[philetus]

"you love junk science?" is a slur?

The contractile maximal response elicited by 8-epi-PGF2alpha was significantly smaller than that elicited by the other drugs, but was significantly higher in BR from heaves-affected horses than in those sampled in healthy horses, whilst pD2 values were similar. A subthreshold concentration of 8-epi-PGF2alpha (10-7 M) did not induce in vitro cholinergic hyper-responsiveness in BR of either healthy or heaves-affected horses. In conclusion, it has been demonstrated that 8-epi-PGF2alpha is an in vitro bronchoconstrictor of minor importance in healthy horses, but whose efficacy is significantly increased in heaves-affected horses.

[VRWC_minion]

So, your saying , for reasonable people, NO proof that something is bad is ample proof to them that it is bad and if they have no proof that it should be banned, that is ample proof that it should be banned.

If parent cannot discern the difference between a glass of water and a room full of cigarette smoke they have no business raising children. We do know the smoke absolutely causes early death in smokers. We do know that smoke is something to avoid in general. We do know that smoking is the cause of specific diseases that only come from smoking. Therefore, unlike water, its a risk factor. Therefore, its not something a reasonable adult would subject a child to.

If an adult does that continuously, deliberately and consistently they are abusive, not to mention supremely selfish.

[philetus]

"If parent cannot discern the difference between a glass of water and a room full of cigarette smoke they have no business raising children."

where were we discussing the difference between a glass of water and a room full of smoke?

[VRWC_minion]

where were we discussing the difference between a glass of water and a room full of smoke?

Then you admit that cigarette smoke is more harmfull than water ? We are making progress. I assumed you believe that cigarette smoke is a natural and harmless as mother's milk.

[Gabz]

If any parent deliberately, continuously and needlessly burns something which releases potential carcinogens and other chemicals within close proximity to the child on a regular basis, that parent is abusive.

I've got a fire burning in my woodstove right now..........burning wood releases potential carcinogens - are we going to be banning woodstoves and fireplaces next???

[Gabz]

You have summed up the arguement of the antis perfectly.

[Gabz]

We do know the smoke absolutely causes early death in smokers. We do know that smoke is something to avoid in general. We do know that smoking is the cause of specific diseases that only come from smoking.

Absolutely?????????

You have got to be absolutely kidding and forgot to add the /sarcasm tag to your post.

Even you can't possibly believe this nonsense.......because that is exactly what it is - nonsense.

That is not to say that smoking is healthy habit to take up - it is just to say that your attempt to use the absurd to prove your point falls very far short of the mark.

[armymarinemom]

Second hand smoke huh? Did we ever decide to stop duct taping Foster Children in our basements?