Minneapolis Star Tribune, Aug. 16
Regulators, lawmakers should act quickly after illnesses linked to vaping
Minnesota’s failure to raise the tobacco, e-cig age to 21 looks even more irresponsible.
The intense medical care required for four Minnesota teenagers who developed severe lung illnesses linked to vaping is stunning.
Among the interventions: extensive hospital stays, sometimes in the intensive care unit and sometimes requiring intubation to help the young patients breathe. After discharge, ongoing monitoring is needed to determine if the illness leaves lasting lung damage. All of this in young people who should be in the prime of their lives and their health.
Up to 50 cases of similar lung injuries have now been reported in e-cig users across the nation, with an alarming number in young adults. Health officials have stopped short of saying vaping, which involves inhaling nicotine vapor from an electronic “e-cig” device, is the cause. But they’ve been unusually pointed in their remarks. Policymakers in Minnesota and elsewhere are grossly negligent if they fail to note that directness and act upon it.
“We have no leads pointing to a specific substance other than those that are associated with smoking or vaping,” Dr. David D. Gummin, professor and chief of medical toxicology at the Medical College of Wisconsin, said in an Aug. 14 New York Times story.
In early August, health officials in Gummin’s home state reported that 11 teens and young adults had required hospitalization for vaping-associated lung injuries. In addition to nicotine, the vapor may contain other chemicals that irritate or damage lung tissue. There are now four more confirmed cases in Wisconsin, with 15 additional illnesses in a broader age range under investigation there. Cases also have been reported in Illinois, and investigations are underway in New York, Indiana and California.
So far the number of hospitalizations is relatively small, but that is of little comfort given vaping’s embrace by adolescents and young adults. Former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb rightly called e-cig use in young people an “epidemic.”
“From 2017 to 2018, there was a 78% increase in current e-cigarette use among high school students and a 48 percent increase among middle school students,” Gottlieb said in 2018.
The widespread use leads to this disturbing deduction about vaping-related illnesses. “This is just the beginning of adverse health reports,” said Dr. Richard Hurt, a retired Mayo Clinic tobacco addiction expert, in an interview with an editorial writer. Hurt also warned that there could be other damaging health effects that don’t show up for years or even decades.
Gottlieb merits praise for grasping vaping’s risks far ahead of the curve. He took serious steps to stem e-cigs use in young people. One key move: banning e-cig products, such ones that produce candy- or fruit-flavored vapors, in many retail settings.
Unfortunately, Gottlieb resigned March 5. No permanent replacement has been named, a situation that President Donald Trump needs to swiftly fix. Gottlieb’s successor must be committed to carrying on his e-cig campaign.
State lawmakers also need to act. Raising the tobacco and e-cig purchase age from 18 to 21 would be a logical first response. It’s important to note that all four of the Minnesota young people who became ill are teens. Moving the purchase age to 21 would protect older teens from getting hooked on nicotine and keep e-cigs out of the hands of even younger users who might rely on friends to buy the products for them.
The Minnesota Legislature considered but failed to pass a measure bumping the purchase age to 21. That looks particularly irresponsible as these illnesses come to light. The measure should be reintroduced and passed early next session, giving lawmakers time to consider other consumer safeguards against a product whose serious risks are just starting to become clear.
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St. Cloud Times, Aug. 17
Reversing the tone of politics won’t come from leaders
The level of political rhetoric in the United States today is in the sewer. And it’s mostly our, the citizenry’s, fault.
Yes, high-ranking politicians at every level of government do, on occasion, lob verbal Molotov cocktails out into the air we breathe.
Yes, the political parties twist talking points into memes with the most polarizing language and images imaginable (until they outdo themselves next week).
Yes, the extreme right- and left-wing propaganda “news” sites and radio talk shows sometimes spread blatant lies to advance their agendas - even if that agenda is simply to become highly-rated stars in their own micro-universes.
They do all of those things because they know those messages work - and will be shared. We fall for it, spreading those messages far and wide, and not to mention completely for free.
But we hold all of the power to do what the sensible middle, and even the extremists, say they want: to have reasoned debate of the issues Americans disagree on.
The fact that we now communicate largely by shouts, jeers, hats, T-shirts, memes, bumper-stickers and expletive-laden social media comments is rooted solely in our acceptance and participation. Because it’s “funny” or made us feel powerful, we the public started playing in the mud.
Which means we can stop.
U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minnesota, was well criticized for going light on his constituent outreach earlier in his term. Since changing his ways and scheduling more town halls, he has commonly been met with crowds that apparently want to punish him with yelling, finger-pointing and jeers.
Don’t think we believe deference should come with the job of being an elected leader. “Elected” means we are the bosses. But good bosses don’t berate - because they know it rarely works.
Likewise, when political arguments online become fact-free volleys of “Orange Clown” and “Killary,” no one is really listening. No one is being convinced. We’re just wallowing in muck that damages the collective conversation.
When a comedian poses with a prop severed head of the president or when a meme depicts that president as a hangman on the gallows with the caption “I’m ready for Hillary,” we are getting our jollies from incitements to violence. (Side note: If the word “snowflake” or phrase “he was asking for it” just popped into your head, you’re part of the problem.)
The message is simple: If we want a better political climate, we have to make it.
Have a beef with an elected official? Write a letter to the editor or the lawmaker’s office. Make a sign. Picket. Organize. Tell others about it without ALL CAPS, a photo with words on it, or !!!!!!. Hey, maybe even vote or volunteer for a campaign.
To be clear, we adamantly support the American right to disagree with any elected or appointed official, even loudly, even disruptively. But when vitriol is the only tool on the workbench, we can’t build a staircase into the light.
So let’s stop sharing that fact-free meme. Don’t buy that “Rope, Tree, (Enemy) - Some Assembly Required” T-shirt. How about no name-calling? We could even stop casting the “other side” as evil because, well, mostly they’re not.
Let’s think for ourselves, then speak for ourselves in a way that could genuinely advance a point of view. Isn’t that what all the yelling is about?
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The Free Press of Mankato, Aug. 18
Reckless plan to gut Endangered Species Act
Why it matters: The Endangered Species Act has the clear support of Americans and attempts to gut it are dangerous.
The Endangered Species Act, signed into law by President Nixon in 1973, is arguably one of the least controversial laws on the books.
A series of polls in recent years has shown incredible bipartisan support at least 85% of Americans in favor of it.
Yet there has been growing attempts by Republicans to gut the act, and President Trump administration last week made a reckless attack on it.
More than 1,200 species that are endangered and near extinction are protected, as are nearly 400 species listed as threatened.
If Trump’s plan to rewrite how the act is administered survives court challenges, it will make it harder to protect threatened species and to protect habitat that endangered and threatened animals need.
The Endangered Species Act is the reason Minnesotans and other Americans can now see bald eagles in plentiful numbers.
It helped restore the number of grizzly bears, which are still on the threatened list. The Minnesota state bee - the rusty patched bumblebee - also benefits from its threatened listing.
The act requires that decisions to list an endangered or threatened species must be based on science with no reference to potential economic effects if an animal is listed.
Trump’s new rules would direct that a cost-benefit analysis be done during the listing process. The administration says the economic information would be informational only, but it is undoubtedly aimed at giving corporations and developers more ammunition to oppose protections.
The Endangered Species Act also prohibits anyone from killing or harming endangered species. Threatened species have always had that same protection unless the Fish and Wildlife Service made special allowances to the contrary. Trump’s rules would allow the killing of threatened species unless Fish and Wildlife specifically writes rules protecting some of the animals listed.
That is a foolish change in policy that would only increase the risk that animals listed as threatened would soon become endangered.
The Center for Biological Diversity, which supports protections for endangered species, found that in the 1990s and early 2000s there were only a few bills introduced in Congress each year aimed at chipping away at the Endangered Species Act.
But in the first two years of the Trump presidency, Republicans have introduced well over 100 changes to try and gut protections.
The courts may halt the administration’s attempt to weaken the act, but Congress can and should use its oversight powers to stop the rule changes. GOP lawmakers from many states that have seen the benefits of the act and who listen to their constituents should help form a bipartisan coalition to stop the Endangered Species Act from being eviscerated.
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