Another (Vape)Smoke and Mirrors Charade Taking Place in the White House

 

 

Headlines about vaping expressing fears that it may become the latest national health problem are drawing concerns from the public, even Donald Trump supposedly and the First lady.

While holding court with his wife Melania and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar in the White House on the 18th anniversary of 911, Trump announced that “We can’t allow people to get sick and we can’t have our youth be so affected. People are dying” he said with no sense of irony.

Such concern falls on the deaf ears of those who see people die each day because they lack the financial means for life-saving health care services and the medications that are priced out of their income range. As the cheerleader who wants to kill Obamacare without having anything to replace it, Trump and the GOP will put millions in harms way who face life-ending conditions without the medical & pharmaceutical necessities that will keep them alive.

After failing to respond to the gun violence in this country and now threatening to revoke California’s authority to set auto emissions rules that will improve air quality for residents there, the president wants us to believe he really cares about the death of vape users?

If he shows as much concern for them however as he has for the lives lost from gun violence and extreme climate conditions resulting from an increasingly warm planet, the only action we’ll be seeing Trump taking will be his poor back swing on a tee box at one of his private golf clubs.

Unlike the fossil fuel and gun industries whose huge campaign contributions influence federal and state legislation to their benefit, the vaping industry is low-lying fruit for Trump that currently lack the impact of the NRA and the American Petroleum Institute.  Not wanting to leave any corporate donor behind however, Trump has agreed to ban only flavored vaping products — not those with tobacco-flavor.

Trump and other so-called opponents of vaping have already left the door open for this health threat to continue with their reluctance to ban all vape products. Advocates of vaping assure us that vaping doesn’t pose a health & safety risk. To appease them, Trump is willing to ban only flavored vaping products — not those with tobacco-flavor.

This neutering of a full ban is a meaningless gesture that keeps vape supporters in denial from the serious health issues vaping poses.  A growing body of research indicates that it may lead to negative health consequences, including damage to the brain heart and lungs, cancerous tumor development and preterm deliveries and stillbirths in pregnant women, according to the Center on Addiction. 

It is the same mindset that says the easy and abundant access to guns having nothing to do with the high suicide rates in this country or that adding green house gases (GHGs) like CO2 and methane in the atmosphere poses no threat because they already exist in nature. Never mind that what makes suicides easier and deadlier is also profitable for the gun industry or what GHGs that humans emit into the atmosphere are not the result of natural conditions.

It’s all about the Benjamins. In an unfettered free market system where industries whose products pose health and safety risks for the public, capital investments and their rewards for a wealthy few supersede the human capital who suffer from their existence.

As a member of that wealthy club Trump’s words will never match any action that requires confronting his comrades at the top.  Remember his 2016 campaign promise to “drain the swamp” of wealthy corporate lobbyists?