Smoking Cigarettes Is Bad Because Cigarettes Are Deadly Donald Trump Make America Great Again
Vice President Mike Pence, the man now leading the nation'due south response to public health threat from the coronavirus outbreak, one time wrote "smoking doesn't kill."
President Donald Trump on Midweek tapped Pence to work with the CDC, NIH and other government agencies to coordinate U.Southward. response to the outbreak.
But Pence's statement on smoking — fabricated during his 2001 run for a congressional seat — could come back to haunt him.
"Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn't kill," Pence wrote in an opinion slice posted on his congressional campaign website in March 2001.
"In fact, two out of every 3 smokers does not die from a smoking related illness and ix out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer," Pence wrote. "This is not to say that smoking is expert for you. News flash: smoking is not good for you."
In the op-ed, Pence likewise urged people to quit smoking.
Critics, including U.Due south. Senators, used the op-ed to criticize Pence's new part. Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, hammered Pence's stance on smoking and the 2015 HIV outbreak. "Nosotros demand competence & science driving our response--that'due south non the VP's record."
"Mike Pence is for conversion therapy. Mike Pence said smoking didn't cause cancer. Mike Pence doesn't believe climate scientific discipline. Mike Pence questioned whether or not condoms worked," Sen. Brian Shatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, tweeted Wednesday. "And then (cringe emoji)."
Pence, in his piece, never claimed smoking did not cause cancer. He wrote that: "ix out of x smokers practice not contract lung cancer."
Pence'southward function did not immediately respond to an electronic mail seeking comment on his electric current views on smoking.
Pence's actions on smoking
Pence, in the 2001 piece, touted his conservative beliefs while arguing confronting proposals to create new authorities agencies to manage money from a settlement with tobacco makers.
"The relevant question is, what is more harmful to the nation, 2d mitt fume or back handed big authorities disguised in do-gooder healthcare rhetoric," Pence wrote.
The Trump administration final calendar month banned fruit- and mint-flavored east-cigarettes and vaping products, while assuasive the flavors in other tank-based smoking systems.
The new rules were more limited than the administration'due south sweeping ban on vaping products appear in September. Officials at the time cited studies that found an alarming number of teenagers were vaping.
"Our efforts have always been how practice we balance?" U.S. Wellness and Human Services Secretarial assistant Alex Azar said in a story published Jan. 2 in USA Today.
"How do we make certain products remain available for adults who are using them to get off or stay off combustible tobacco ... just besides continue the most attractive products or flavors away from kids?"
Pence in 2009 voted against the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Command Act, which imposed new warning labels and gave the Nutrient and Drug Assistants the ability to regulate tobacco.
As Indiana's governor, Pence opposed a plan to fund route repairs through a tax hike on tobacco and gasoline.
"Governor Pence believes the final place to expect when we take the best credit rating and $2 billion in reserves is in the pocketbooks of hardworking Hoosiers," Pence'southward then-spokeswoman Kara Brooks said in January 2016.
Pence signed the funding bill in March 2016 afterwards lawmakers stripped out new taxes on fuel and cigarettes.
The science on smoking
The statistics Pence relied on have changed in the 2 decades since he wrote this piece. The U.Southward. Centers for Disease Command now attributes nigh one-in-five deaths annually to smoking.
It was non clear Thursday whether Pence has changed his opinion on smoking equally wellness data and statistics have changed.
Co-ordinate to the CDC, smoking is the leading cause of preventable death.
The CDC blames cigarette smoking for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the U.s.a.. More than 41,000 of those deaths were result of secondhand smoke.
A 2016 report by the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Wellness at Indiana University, Purdue University-Indianapolis.described tobacco as an epidemic in Indiana and Marion County.
The IUPUI study found:
- more than xi,000 Hoosiers die prematurely each year from cigarette smoking;
- more than i,400 Hoosier nonsmokers dice annually from exposure to secondhand smoke;
- nigh v,700 children under eighteen start smoking each year in Indiana;
- about 15% of Hoosier women smoked while pregnant in 2014.
"Loftier rates of maternal smoking are probable ane driver of Indiana'south disproportionately higher rates of infant bloodshed and underweight births when compared to the nation equally a whole," according to the IUPUI study.
Contact IndyStar reporter Vic Ryckaert at 317-444-2701 or vic.ryckaert@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @VicRyc.
Source: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2020/02/27/pence-smoking-cancer-donald-trump-coronavirus-response/4890066002/