World AIDS Day 2008

December 1 is World AIDS Day.

Since this day was first marked in 1988, people and organizations around the globe have worked to bring attention to the AIDS pandemic. The United Nations notes that in 2007, more than 33 million people worldwide were living with HIV or AIDS, and of this number, 2 million were children under the age of 15.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the annual event dedicated to remembering those who've been lost to the virus and to recommitting with vigor to the fight against AIDS. In the past two decades,the virus has claimed the lives of 20 million people.The deaths of people HIV/AIDS have grown to more than 2 million each year. It's only recently, thanks to the lifesaving antiretroviral drugs currently available to HIV-positive people, that the number of annual deaths caused by HIV has begun to decline.

According to the CDC, 33 million people worldwide are living with HIV with nearly 7,500 new infections occurring each day. An estimated 3 million people are now receiving antiretroviral treatment in low and middle-income countries. In the United States, CDC estimates that about 1.1 million people are living with HIV. These numbers will most likely increase over time, as antiretroviral drug treatments extend the lives of those with HIV and more people become HIV infected. As expected, as the number of people living with HIV grows, so does the opportunity for those with HIV to pass on the virus to others.

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plez sez: it's been over 20 years since HIV/AIDS entered into our lexicon. unfortunately, one of the most preventable of diseases has continued to grow and flourish throughout the world.

educate yourself on HIV and AIDS. get tested. and do what you can to prevent the spread of this deadly disease.

my brother is a doctor who works on the front lines in the fight against HIV and AIDS. he works with HIV-positive patients in the Georgia and Alabama and in the prison population. truly an honorable calling... indeed!

~ ~ Citations ~ ~

Read the CDC.gov post about World AIDS Day.

Educate yourself about HIV & AIDS here.

Read the CNN.com article about World AIDS Day.

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The CBC & Menthol Cigarettes

The vote on the cigarette ban comes before Congress in the coming weeks. And the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is in a quandary as to whether they will be able to support the bill or not.

In the past, free cigarettes were available at CBC functions. Rep. Edolphus Towns (Democrat of Brookly) used to carry the moniker of "Marlboro Man" due to the large campaign contributions he would received from the tobacco industry. Minority whip Rep. James Clyburn, of South Carolina, represents a tobacco-growing region of South Carolina; last year, the parent of Philip Morris donated $50,000 to an endowment he established at South Carolina State University, an HBCU in Orangeburg. Over the years, Philip Morris has been one of the biggest contributors to the nonprofit Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, exceeding $250,000 at times.

A bill before Congress gives the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) the power to regulate tobacco products and would attempt to reduce teenage smoking by banning most flavored cigarettes, like clove, mocha, and cinnamon. But menthol cigarettes are exempt from the ban, the ONLY flavor that is exempt from the ban. In an earlier plezWorld post, it is explained that menthol cigarettes are the cigarettes of choice in the Black community, accounting for more than 28% of the $70 billion cigarette market. The tobacco industry supports the ban of all flavored cigarettes, except menthol! Many in Congress feel that by including menthol in the ban will kill the bill, even though, George W. Bush plans to veto it anyway.

Two former federal health secretaries, Joseph A. Califano Jr. and Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, who is African-American, met recently with Rep. Waxman, the House bill's sponsor, to argue against the menthol exemption. Because he said he was unlikely to change his mind, they later sent him a letter saying “the current version of the bill, which gives menthol a protected status, would have the effect of discriminating against the health interests of African-Americans.” The letter was also signed by William S. Robinson, executive director of the National African-American Tobacco Prevention Network.

The CBC's chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, of Michigan, says its members, all Democrats, are deeply divided on the subject. “The caucus is split,” she said. “We do want to see menthol regulated, but we’re convinced that eliminating or prohibiting menthol would be a killer for the bill.” She said the black caucus was drafting an amendment to the House tobacco regulation bill, possibly to call for a study of menthol.

Will the CBC support the bill even though it allows the marketing of menthol cigarettes? Will the CBC protect one of the few industries that they can count on for cash money during their campaigns? Will the CBC support a bill that discriminates against the health interests of their constituents?

Read the New York Times article about the CBC split over menthol cigarettes here.

Read the plezWorld post about the cigarette bill before Congress here.

plez sez: my thoughts on this matter have not changed - if Congress is going to ban flavored cigarettes in an attempt to curb underage smoking, then it needs to ban ALL flavored cigarettes. by maintaining the exemption for menthol cigarettes, Congress is sending approval to the tobacco industry to continue to ply their trade with the most vulnerable group: underage Blacks!

i've heard the rationale for not supporting the ban, but i've never heard the rationale for not supporting the ban with the menthol exemption.

plezWorld strongly urges the Congressional Black Caucus to support the interests of the Black community by opposing the bill if it contains an exemption for menthol.

Cigarette Ban Bill Exempts Menthol

In a bill that George W. Bush has vowed to veto, Congress gives the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) the power to regulate tobacco products and would attempt to reduce teenage smoking by banning most flavored cigarettes, like clove, mocha, and cinnamon. But menthol cigarettes are exempt from the ban, the ONLY flavor that is exempt from the ban.

An article in The New York Times asks the question, "why would menthol cigarettes be exempt from the ban?" It is the most widely used flavor and is the cigarette of choice for most Blacks in America who smoke. And get this: Black men die from lung cancer at a rate 50 percent higher than white men.

According to the article, menthol cigarettes are "politically off limits" because their sales make up twenty-five percent of the $70 billion cigarette industry in the US. In addition, Philip Morris USA, the industry leader, which is lobbying in support for the legislation, has come to rely on the sale of menthol cigarettes in the Black community and they will not support the bill with a ban on menthol. Since Congress wants to the FDA to get a foothold into the tobacco industry, they would rather leave menthol alone rather than risk the bill's passing.

The controversy over menthol stems from the fact that close to seventy-five percent of all Black smokers use menthol brands... you know them well: Kool, Salem, and Newport billboards litter the landscape of every Black community in the US! If you've never seen a billboard or a bus stop advertisement for any of these brands, then you've never been in a Black community.

Only twenty-five percent of white smokers use menthol cigarettes.

In 1998, the C.D.C. released a report that suggested that menthol "may increase the absorption of harmful smoking constituents." But subsequent studies have proven to be inconclusive about those claims. Some even suggest that the use of menthol cigarettes makes them more addictive and more difficult to quit... once again, there are no studies to support that contention.

Read the 1998 CDC Report on cigarettes in the Black community here.

Read the New York Times article about menthol cigarettes here.


plez sez: everyone who is surprised by this article, raise your hands!

once again, the Black community gets the opportunity to be pillaged and ravaged for corporate profits. a known carcinogen that has more adverse effects on the Black community is permitted to be marketed and sold within the Black community. if strawberry-flavored cigarettes are so dangerous and need regulation, then why are menthol-flavored cigarettes nebulous just because they are the nicotine-delivery method of choice in the Black community? is there no concern that Black children will continue to get hooked on these things while every other community in the nation is free from a similar temptation?

my father smoked socially - when with other men were smoking or when he was driving long distances. he grew up a sharecropper's son, harvesting tobacco in those dingy north carolina fields of his youth. no doubt, he adopted the habit at an early age. my siblings and i were discouraged from smoking cigarettes, drinking liquor (i obviously missed that lecture), and taking dope! i know plenty of people who adopted the nasty habit of smoking at an early age, including my oldest brother who died of cancer four years ago.

damn those Kools and Newport Menthol 100's!

Toxic Toothpaste Found in the U.S.

Before you brush your teeth, you may want to check the origin of the toothpaste that you are putting on your toothbrush.

The FDA recently advised consumers to discard all toothpaste made in China after federal health officials said they found Chinese-made toothpaste containing a poison in three locations: Miami, the Port of Los Angeles and Puerto Rico.

A New York Times article says:

Agency officials said they found toothpaste containing a small amount of diethylene glycol, a sweet, syrupy poison (which is used in automobile antifreeze), at a Dollar Plus retail store in Miami, sold under the brand name ShiR Fresh Mint Fluoride Paste. The F.D.A. also identified nine other brands of Chinese toothpaste that contain diethylene glycol, some with concentrations of 3 percent to 4 percent."

* emphasis mine

LogiPundit states that you should also avoid the following brands of toothpaste with may be tainted with the same poison: Cooldent Fluoride, Cooldent Spearmint, Cooldent ICE, Dr. Cool, Superdent, Clean Rite, Oralmax Extreme, Oral Bright, Bright Max, and ShiR Fresh Mint.

plez sez: in an effort to open up our markets to the world, we are also opening our citizens up to health dangers from afar. increased bouts of gastrointestinal illnesses and norovirus (Norwalk flu virus) (i was floored by one back in February of this year), salmonella outbreaks, e. coli in our food, pet foods tainted with materials used to make plastic, and now you can't even brush your teeth with confidence anymore. this country's problem isn't with the influx of immigrants from Mexico, it's with the barrage of unsafe food and products that we are ingesting on a daily basis which is coming into the US in an almost unregulated fashion (this article on the struggles of the FDA is quite chilling).

imagine that: a terrorist attack on the US via our food supply!

cheap labor overseas should begin to mean unsafe and sub-par quality for the people of the United States. until countries like china begin to regulate their exports to meet our specifications, maybe we should reduce (or stop) importing their foodstuffs until they do.

in the meantime, you may want to check that tube of toothpaste before you brush your teeth!