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January 4th, 2009:

A New Cigarette Hazard – ‘Third-Hand Smoke’ – NYTimes.com

Jan 4th, 2009
by Tom.
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Let’s take a second look at the cigarette issue. Cigarette smoke is addictive and it kills, period. Why are the tobacco companies still in business?

A New Cigarette Hazard – ‘Third-Hand Smoke’ – NYTimes.com.

That’s the term being used to describe the invisible yet toxic brew of gases and particles clinging to smokers’ hair and clothing, not to mention cushions and carpeting, that lingers long after smoke has cleared from a room. The residue includes heavy metals, carcinogens and even radioactive materials that young children can get on their hands and ingest, especially if they’re crawling or playing on the floor.

The article explains what is meant by “third hand smoke” and the dangers of it.

Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician who heads the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said the phrase third-hand smoke is a brand-new term that has implications for behavior.

“The central message here is that simply closing the kitchen door to take a smoke is not protecting the kids from the effects of that smoke,” he said. “There are carcinogens in this third-hand smoke, and they are a cancer risk for anybody of any age who comes into contact with them.”

Among the substances in third-hand smoke are hydrogen cyanide, used in chemical weapons; butane, which is used in lighter fluid; toluene, found in paint thinners; arsenic; lead; carbon monoxide; and even polonium-210, the highly radioactive carcinogen that was used to murder former Russian spy Alexander V. Litvinenko in 2006. Eleven of the compounds are highly carcinogenic.

So why are cigarette companies still in business? Here is a list I googled up from the Tobacco Product Liability Project, a division of the Public Health Advocacy Institute. This is a list of litigations in 2008.

12-15-08 – The U.S. Supreme Court Narrowly Permitted “Light” Cigarette Litigation to move forward in a Blow to Cigarette Companies.  See our Press Release and the Decision (pdf).

12-3-2008 – Senior Attorney Edward Sweda notes an important misrepresentation in Philip Morris’ brief for the U.S. Supreme Court in Philip Morris v. Williams, which will be argued today.  See our Press Release.

10-3-2008 – U.S. Supreme Court to hear arguments on Monday on tobacco company’s attempt to evade accountability for its “light” cigarette scam.  See our Press Release.

6-09-2008 – The U.S. Supreme Court has denied review of the extraordinary ratio of punitive to compensatory damages in Williams, essentially giving tobacco litigators the green light to seek record punitive damages against cigarette companies.  However, review was granted in the Williams case on another issue unrelated to the key issue of the damages ratio.  See our Press Release.

1-31-08 – The Oregon Supreme Court unanimously reinstated the $79.5 million punitive damages verdict in the Williams case. This will likely expose the tobacco industry to potentially crippling punitive damages in the thousands of lawsuits it faces. See our Commentary and Backgrounder.

This organization is doing nothing short of saving lives. Every effort needs accolades and support.

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The Warren Pick

Jan 4th, 2009
by Tom.
No comments yet

From The Nation, January 12, 2009 issue, opinion by Richard Kim entitled Good God, Bad God. The piece concerns the outpouring lately from the progressive left, especially from the gay and lesbian community over the choice Barack Obama made having Pastor Rick Warren deliver the inaugural invocation.

I blogged about it in Daily Kos, you blogged it up there and elsewhere, but when I read this op-ed in The Nation, I knew it deserved A Second Look.

The op-ed piece begins,

Barack Obama’s choice of evangelical pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration has provoked outrage from progressives, who have condemned it as a slap at his base and at gay and lesbian supporters in particular. Wasn’t Obama’s election a repudiation of the religious right? Couldn’t he have picked a more progressive figure–like civil rights leader Joseph Lowery, who supports same-sex marriage and is giving the closing benediction? Why won’t Democrats behave like Republicans, who reward their religious base with state spoils both symbolic and monetary?

Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, speaks during a panel discussion on rural development, Sept 26, 2008 in New York. AP Images<br/> Rick Warren, Pastor of Saddledback Church

The key point he’s trying to make is this; was the election of Barack Obama actually about ridding ourselves of the religious right and proving that their meddling in government a violation of the separation clause? No. Mr. Kim’s point is that we elected a man who sees the new evangelicals as a helping hand instead of a hindrance. Obama has stated all along that he favors faith-based initiatives, that the programs can do for the poor what government cannot. Obama reached out to evangelicals throughout the campaign.

In this culture war calculus, Obama’s decision to split the difference–Warren at the top, Lowery at the close (benediction)–makes perfect sense. After all, Warren and Obama are not as unlike as progressives would like to believe. They disagree about abortion, but both want to expand faith-based initiatives for social services. Indeed, Warren has earned accolades from many Democrats (including Obama) as a new breed of evangelical interested in poverty reduction and climate change. They cheered as he and his wife, Kay, became major players in the AIDS world even though Warren’s programs, some funded by Bush’s global AIDS plan, advocated abstinence-only education and Christian conversion. Obama and the Democrats may now limit cases of evangelizing on the federal dime and inject science into the mix, but the door to proselytizing and privatization remains wide open.

So why not pick Warren? He has proved to be a champion of many of the same issues that we on the progressive left are also supporting. I think this is a politically good pick. Obama disagrees with Proposition 8 on a constitutional level but at the same time says that he does not support same sex marriages on a religious level. Obama has said as a matter of policy that he wants equal rights for same sex marriages, and so does Rick Warren. What we need now is legislation to give civil unions the rights that they deserve. As Mr. Kim says, let’s press forward with a federal civil union bill that guarantees the same civil rights as marriages.

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