|
Health - Tobacco Tobacco Rep. Waxman has been the leading spokesperson and the focal point of tobacco legislation on Capitol Hill since early in his Congressional career. After three decades in Congress, he continues his fight against the tobacco industry's practice of deceit and misrepresentation. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. According to the World Health Organization, tobacco is the second major cause of death in the world. It is currently responsible for the death of 440,000 Americans and one in ten adults worldwide (about 5 million) each year. If current smoking patterns continue, it will cause some 10 million deaths each year by 2030. Half the people that smoke today - that is about 650 million people - will eventually be killed by tobacco. The consequences of tobacco smoking have devastated America's public health. The young have long been innocent victims of tobacco companies, suffering both from involuntary smoke and from indefensible marketing practices. Tobacco manufacturers know that the younger children begin smoking, the more likely they are to become chronic smokers as adults. On February 15, 2007, Rep. Waxman, along with several of his colleagues, introduced the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (H.R. 1108). This legislation would give FDA strong authority to regulate tobacco products. Click here to view more information about the bill. From 1979 to 1994, Rep. Waxman served as Chairman of the House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health and the Environment. To help focus public attention on the dangers of tobacco, Rep. Waxman invited movie stars and celebrities to appear before his committee. These hearings contributed to the vast change in public opinion about smoking. Other hearings by the Subcommittee exposed the secret activities of the tobacco industry, both through the testimony of industry insiders and internal tobacco company documents. Today Rep. Waxman continues the battle against tobacco in his post as the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Through this position, he has advocated for FDA regulation of tobacco products and a ban on smoking in House buildings, supported the Department of Justice in their case against the tobacco industry, and investigated the distribution of "smokeless" tobacco to our troops and the marketing of "reduced risk" tobacco.
|
Send a Message to Rep. Waxman