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July 18, 2007 Coalition needs your support for FDA regulation of tobaccoThe Hoosier Faith and Health Coalition, which has strong United Methodist support across Indiana, needs your help in convincing Congress to support legislation that would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution and sale of tobacco products. This is legislation that is receiving bipartisan support in both houses of Congress. Senators Lugar and Bayh support this bill before the U.S. Senate. Your assistance is needed to see that this legislation is heard and supported in the U.S. House of Representatives. Please write your Congressional representative today. Here are the names and contact information by districts. Due to extreme slow down in U.S. Mail to Congress, fax your letter. Thank you.
Indiana’s U.S. Representatives(Find your representative by zip code at www.house.gov.)
SAMPLE LETTER TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVEJuly 2007 The Honorable [legislator name] Indiana District x [address] Washington, DC 20515 Fax number 202-xxx-xxxx Dear Representative _____________, We are writing today to urge your support of legislation that would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution and sale of tobacco products. In 2004, identical FDA legislation was introduced in the House and Senate on a bipartisan basis. The Senate overwhelmingly passed the legislation on two separate occasions, but the House blocked it in conference. This year, Congress has a new opportunity to consider and pass
legislation that will protect children and adults from a lifetime of
tobacco addiction. Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and John Cornyn (R-TX)
and Representatives Tom Davis (R-VA) and Henry Waxman (D-CA) have
introduced S.625 and H.R. 1108, legislation that would give the FDA
authority over tobacco products. We ask that you commit to support this
legislation in committee and on the floor, so as to choose the health of
Tobacco use kills more than 400,000 Americans each year and costs our nation more than $75 billion in health care bills. Each day, another 1,500 kids become regular smokers, one-third of whom will die prematurely as a result. In fact, 24.1 percent of adult Hoosiers are regular smokers, according to the 2006 Indiana Adult Tobacco Survey, the fifth highest in the country, and nearly 9 out of 10 of those surveyed reported that they would like to break their addiction. Yet tobacco products are virtually unregulated. For decades, the tobacco companies have marketed their deadly products to our children, deceived consumers about the harm their products cause, and failed to take any meaningful action to make their products less harmful or less addictive. The Kennedy-Cornyn/Waxman-Davis bills would finally end the special protection enjoyed by the tobacco industry and protect our children and the nation’s health instead. This legislation meets the standards long established by the public health community for a strong FDA tobacco regulation bill that protects the public health. It would give the FDA the necessary tools and resources to effectively regulate the manufacturing, marketing, labeling, distribution and sale of tobacco products. The FDA would have the authority to:
This bipartisan FDA legislation protects the public health and takes a significant step toward driving down the significant toll tobacco takes in terms of both Hoosier lives and costs to the Indiana economy. We urge you to join the many other members of the House of Representatives who have signed on to be a co-sponsor of this legislation. Thank you for your consideration of this issue. We look forward to your response. Sincerely,
Signature of names supporting this action including address # # # e-HUM Alert copyright 2007 by Indiana Area United Methodist Communications. |
