54 Senators Risk Health of Millions to Appease Environmentalists on Inhaler Ban

WASHINGTON, D.C. Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) made the following statement after the Senate voted 44-54against his amendment that would have stopped the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) ban on over-the-counter (OTC) epinephrine asthma inhalers. The amendment would have disallowed the use of taxpayer funds to enforce the ban on OTC inhalers. The ban is set to take effect in Jan. 1, 2012 and puts environmental concerns ahead of concerns for the estimated 3 million American asthma sufferers who use these inhalers.

“Fifty-four Senators voted to appease extreme environmentalists by banning inhalers that millions of Americans that depend on to breathe,” said Senator DeMint. “This ban won’t do anything serious to help the environment but it will force asthma suffers to spend two to three times more on prescription inhalers, leading many low-income Americans to seek less effective remedies. Even the EPA and FDA admit that banning OTC inhalers will do little to nothing to affect the ozone, but it could lead to hundreds of thousands of new asthma related hospital visits and hundreds of millions in new health costs.”

“This is exactly the kind of ridiculous regulation that shows why Americans are so fed up with the federal government’s nanny-state mentality. Once again, Washington is willing to put Americans at risk in the hopes of appeasing special interests.”

The FDA estimated that the inhaler ban may result in asthma sufferers self-medicating with less effective remedies, and could lead to an increase in annual health expenditures from $180 million to $1.1 billion and hospital ER visits for asthma could increase by anywhere from 0 to 444,000. (source: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/E8-27436.htm)

The ban is an attempt to reduce chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) emissions, yet even the FDA admits that “The reduction of CFC emissions associated with removing OTC epinephrine CFC MDIs [Metered-Dose Inhalers] from the U.S. market represents only a fraction of 1 percent of total global CFC emissions. Current allocations of CFCs for OTC epinephrine MDIs account for less than 0.1 percent of the total 1986 global production of CFCs.” (source: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/E8-27436.htm)

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Historic Moment For United States Senate

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed legislation to repeal Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid's health care plan.

Will the Senate follow suit, or will Democrats keep the issue from even coming to a vote?

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky fired out on You Tube that the Democrats were working hard to prevent a vote on repeal in the Senate. He assured that there would at least be a vote. Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina will introduce the bill to the Senate this week.

Why not vote on repeal? The people spoke last November and said that they did not want Obamacare. If the Democrats are so confident that this policy will work in the long run, they should stand up and vote again to keep it. They should affirm their stand before history and the voters. They should trumpet to the nation that they believe that Big Bureaucracy will save our health care just like it did in Great Britain (where prostate cancer has a 45% higher death rate than the United States.)

If the Democrats do not allow a floor vote on the repeal of Obamacare, it betrays the fact that they do not have confidence that it will succeed. They know the voters will punish them again when it fails miserably.

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Congratulations to the team from Keyser High School that won a Constitution competition in Charleston yesterday. They also went to the Capitol and met their legislative representatives. National competition will come in April. We are sure Keyser will do well again.