Posted on 11/02/2001 9:58:26 AM PST by Max McGarrity
November 2001 (Newstream) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched a national Smoke-Free Home Pledge Initiative that asks parents to make their homes smoke-free to protect their children from the serious health effects of secondhand tobacco smoke. In order to maintain a smoke-free home, parents must ensure that friends, relatives, and babysitters also do not smoke inside the family home, according to EPA.
EPA Administrator Gov. Christie Todd Whitman launched the new campaign at the Children's National Medical Center, Washington, DC, on October 16. EPA's Smoke-Free Home Pledge Initiative focuses on encouraging parents to "go out for their kids", until they can quit smoking. Governor Whitman urged parents to call EPA's toll-free hotline to make the Smoke-Free Home Pledge.
Nine to 12 million children are exposed to secondhand smoke at home every day in the United States. According to EPA and several other national studies, health effects include bronchitis and pneumonia, wheezing and coughing spells, ear infections, low birth weight, SIDS, and asthma. In fact, secondhand smoke causes approximately one million children a year to suffer from more frequent and severe asthma attacks. Asthma is the leading chronic illness in children and accounts for ten million missed school days each year.
Parents can make the commitment by calling the Smoke-Free Home Pledge Hotline at 800-513-1157. In return, EPA will send a Smoke-Free Home Kit that includes a pledge certificate and educational materials.
EPA is conducting this campaign with a range of national partner organizations. For example, community, health, and local government groups have started distributing 200,000 pledge brochures across the country. The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology is strongly encouraging its 6,000 member physicians to educate their patients on the health effects of secondhand smoke. The National Association of Counties is launching a County to County Pledge Challenge, an effort that will culminate in national recognition for those that produce the most pledges.
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Mistakenly leaving a fireplace flu-damper closed for two or three minutes of starting a fire will put as much smoke into a house in a year as a pack-a-day smoker. Burnt toast is similar when it happens a couple times a month.
Vladiator, there's a new campaign you can use to whip up an emotional frenzy in the people and usurp an unearned paycheck from taxpayers and/or sheeple.
You don't have to be a fan of smoking to agree that the EPA is a regulatory renegade spinning wildly out of control on this issue. Even several veteran career employees of the agency have gone public recently to protest its "junk science" and its irrational environmental zealotry.
Judge Osteen determined that the EPA had "cherry picked" its data and had grossly manipulated "scientific procedure and scientific norms" in order to rationalize the agency's own preconceived conclusion that passive smoking caused 3,000 lung cancer deaths a year.
And the sordid tale gets worse. The EPA chose to omit entirely from its analysis two recent U.S. ETS studies that had determined that passive smoking was NOT a statistically significant health risk. Worse for the EPA, including those studies with the "cherry-picked" 11 produces a result that shows no statistically significant health risks associated with passive smoking, even at reduced confidence levels. In short, even employing the EPA's own corrupt methodology, ETS was simply not a "Group A Carcinogen," as the agency had boldly asserted.
An Australian news agency caught that country's main medical advisory group doctoring a report in order to cook up a case for smoking bans.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that if you are a prominent lobbyist and you want to remain in the position, you need to demonstrate that you can be effective in getting things done that support your agenda.
This isn't just in Australia. It has happened in the States, as well.
Funny thing, there. My kids are all grown and they were NEVER sick. Now I have grandkids and they're never sick either. No coughs, hacking or otherwise, no asthma, no ear infections, no respiratory distress. The only problem we have with them is it's such a fight to keep them free from the indoctrination of those like you who would lie to them, scaring them into becoming sick.
I know, but he ushered in the "for the children" mantra and proved how valuable it is, so we're stuck with it.
Sucking up to the anti-smoking Nazis???
GW has a lot of house cleaning to do; maybe Christy and Colin can open a liquor store in Bayonne; or a 7-11?? Something that won't stretch them too much intellectually.
prambo
I raised two sons now 42 and 38. My husband and I both smoked and we went to restaurants where people smoked. Both have grown up without any effects.
Now if a child or anyone has a true allergy to smoke I agree, people shouldn't smoke around them or maybe burn sented candles or have perfumes etc around them either.
Don't doubt it, ignorance knows no bounds.....
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