It is difficult to try to figure out the real truth but you just have to keep asking.

That was the case this morning. Last night I published a column on how Lowe’s installation crews were violating the lead safe renovation requirements. Those are simple facts. On my quiet little street in Brown Deer there were no cautionary safety ropes keeping people away from a lead containment zone. There was no plastic tacked down to deal with debris on the outside of the house. I do not know whether or not furniture of bedding in the rooms Lowe’s is installing new windows in has been covered with plastic. I can only assume that since lead safe practices are not being used on the outside of the home, they are being ignored on the inside.

So I did what any responsible journalist would do — I followed up with the management team at the Brown Deer store. The store manager, I was told, was not in today but the gentleman who is in charge of window installation, a man named Justin, took my call.

Justin indicated that a lead safe test is done on all windows as required by the EPA. I explained to Justin that there is a requirement in Wisconsin that homes with lead levels above .06% must have lead safe renovating practices applied and that there was no plastic or containment fields at his job site. Further, there is no commercially available test that is on the market today that will test for levels that low and that if they used a test, it would have tested for the national levels of .5% which is less stringent than the state requirement. This puts their installers, who by the way are finishing up their job without lead safe practices today, in violation of State law which took effect April 22nd.

Justin’s response, “the windows were sold prior to April 22nd so the law doesn’t apply to this job”. Incorrect, I told Justin. All jobs installed on April 22nd or after must adhere to the requirements. Justin didn’t feel our conversation was going anywhere and that’s when he hung up.

But the story of Justin and his reaction are not typical of the service I have gotten from Lowe’s. For home improvement needs, I still believe they are the best choice for service. For the most part, they seem to know their stuff.

As a Lead Safe Renovator I realize that I know more about this stuff than Justin and I don’t fault him, I fault Lowe’s corporate. Lowe’s corporate has a responsibility to stay on top of the laws and to educate their workforce accordingly. In mid-2009 I asked a Lowe’s associate if their windows qualify for the federal tax credit. He responded that all of their windows that say “energy star” do qualify. He was wrong. The Obama stimulus package requires a u-factor of .30 or less and a SHGC (solar heat gain coefficient) of .30 or less. Many windows that carry the energy star logo do not, in fact, meet those requirements. Again, this is not Justin’s fault. For all I know he was not a Lowe’s employee at the time. This is the fault of Lowe’s corporate for failing to educate their workforce.

Like everyone else, Lowe’s needs to be profitable. But like other general contractors, Lowe’s uses subcontractors for their installations. If they are going to sell an installed product, which is clearly not their area of expertise, they, like all other legitimate contractors, should start adhering to the law.

At the same time, there appears to be no government oversight nor funding to oversee problems. If the government is going to require registrations and certifications for businesses to use lead safe practices, they should do the oversight rather than simply stripping struggling businesses of the additional fees to feed additional red tape.

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Jim McGuigan is a Lead Safe Renovator who has passed coursework required by the EPA and State of Wisconsin.

Lowe's Window Installation

Lead was a common paint additive prior to 1978 and high levels of lead contamination have caused people to become ill and for children to develop cognitive disabilities. Especially at high risk are children and women who may be pregnant. The federal government requires lead safe renovation on all homes with lead paint levels of 0.5% or more to go through strict containment procedures. For 49 of the 50 states, there is a readily available test on the market that will tell renovators if lead levels are high enough to require that lead safe renovator practices must be used. Wisconsin lawmakers decided to make compliance even more difficult and Wisconsin is the only state in the country to require lead safe renovations where lead levels are higher than 0.06%. The technology is not yet available to make a commercially available and economically affordable test that will record lead levels that low. This means that legitimate, law abiding contractors must either purchase a $40,000 machine to test lead levels or they must assume lead is present and take precautions accordingly.

Lowe’s is not one of those law abiding contractors.

Last month I warned of this in my column. I wrote that there will be some contractors who simply ignore the laws rather than deal with the approximately $100 per window cost that contractors will have to bear. It was my assessment at that time that it would be the small, unlicensed Mom and Pop operations that happen to own a truck and a ladder and masquerade as legitimate contractors who would ignore the laws. It was those unlicensed businesses, I contended, that would continue to sell windows at the same market price as they always had, while legitimate contractors who had taken the courses, acquired the certifications, purchased the equipment, and used lead safe renovation techniques would be at a disadvantage.

Well I was right — sort of. I say sort of because the first contractor I saw violate this law was Lowe’s.

I did not expect to see a “Lowe’s Installation in Progress” sign in front of one of my neighbors home with workers slamming in windows without any roping off of the job site or any plastic containment barriers.

Having taken the courses and incurred the expenses to become a Lead Safe Renovator, I was appalled to see installers ignoring all safety requirements in a home with two small children. Lead poisoning is not a funny little game. It is a serious problem requiring painful chelation therapy for anyone who has been adversely affected by high lead levels. Even then, the damage done by lead poisoning may not be reversible. It is unconscionable for a contractor to cut corners to safe a few dollars when children are standing nearby watching the installation and playing in the work zone. To see a renovator who so blatantly ignores these rules when children and women of child bearing age are nearby is mind-blowingly irresponsible.

But never, never in a million years, would I have expected one of my favorite home improvement stores to be utilizing such unsafe practices and putting homeowners, children and even possibly babies inutero at danger. I am saddened to see that Lowe’s would use such irresponsible practices to make a buck.

But who would have thought just 5 years ago that an overwhelmingly large bipartisan group of legislators would have come together to pass a smoking ban in workplaces including bars and restaurants by 2010.

Having just returned from a trip to Ireland, I can share that their smoking ban has not had any ill effects on the volume of people bellying up to the bar. At first, there was resistance to the idea just as there has been here, but the Irish have adapted to not going home from a night at the pubs smelling like an ash tray.

It will be a crisis and people will stop going to taverns, especially in Northern Wisconsin, detractors to the newly passed bill have said. Why then are Irish pubs still packed?

While I don’t go out to bars as much as I have a decade or so ago, I can tell you one of the things that keeps me away — the smoke. I know that if I go out to most bars that I will come home smelling like a cigarette and suffering from red eyes and burning lungs. I don’t say this because of some sort of random guess — this is what I experience nearly every time I go out. I will even avoid going out to several bars past an 6pm because I know they’ll be smoky and unbearable.

In Ireland, I could go into a pub with my son and not worry that it will trigger an asthma attack. I can go into a pub with my wife and not worry about how the smoke will trigger a coughing fit from all of the smoke.

So is this ban good? You bet it is. Not only for pubic health, but this ban is good for business.

Camp Heartland is more than just an opportunity for kids to go camping. It offers kids suffering from HIV/AIDS the opportunity to socialize and interact with others who are dealing with the same struggles they are.

Recently, Camp Heartland benefited from the generosity of the folks ABC’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition and Alure Home Improvement who built a new Rec Center for Camp Heartland. I hope to see many more good things come from Willenson and Camp Heartland.

Yahoo! News is reporting that on a 5-4 vote, the court upheld President George W. Bush’s inaptly named “partial birth abortion” act which outlaws a very rare procedure which is used in the later stages of pregnancy and in some cases to save the life of the mother.

Planned Parenthood spokesperson Eve Gartner said in a statement today:

“This ruling flies in the face of 30 years of Supreme Court precedent and the best interest of women’s health and safety. Today the court took away an important option for doctors who seek to provide the best and safest care to their patients. This ruling tells women that politicians, not doctors, will make their health care decisions for them.”

The ban, as proposed by Governor Jim Doyle, would make it illegal to light up in public places.

The Restaurant Association supports the ban but only if it excludes all public places. That includes taverns. The Tavern League isn’t vehement against it as long as it exempts Taverns for a couple years.

We’re told that the Tavern League is considering informing their members of the proposed ban and distributing a ton of beer coasters which urge patrons to call their legislators to oppose a smoking ban in taverns. Savvy legislators should bear in mind that, by and large, regulars at bars aren’t real big on going to the polls.

Meanwhile, an unlikely coalition is forming which couples democrats and republicans in their support of a ban. Should legislators truly set aside partisanship, this ban might actually pass.

Texas Governor Rick Perry has ordered all girls entering 6th grade to have the vaccine that prevents cervical cancer. Wisconsin’s Governor Jim Doyle should follow the lead of the big state in this specific instance.

Cervical cancer incidences can be greatly reduced by vaccinating girls before they become sexually active. Since the human pathaloma virus is spread by sexual contact, the vaccine essentially acts as a vaccination against an STD.

Christian conservatives are crying foul in Texas because they think it will encourage premarital sex.

Uh, yeah, right.

The last thing on a young persons mind when they’re in the throes of passion is whether they might get the human pathaloma virus.

But here’s the rub — Perry included a clause allowing parents to opt out of getting their kids the vaccine. So parents who really don’t want to protect their children from the possibility of cervical cancer later in life, don’t have to. How can any reasonable person object to a law that allow those who don’t agree with it to opt out of it?

Hearing that you donated to a food pantry usually gives people that warm and fuzzy feeling that they did something good. But let’s consider what they’re donating.

The canadian geese that are culled are usually the urban park giants that can regularly be seen grazing on lawns and large green swaths of grass that has been heavily fertilized and seeded with pesticides. It keeps the grass green and growing thick, but that grass is nothing you would want to put in your own body. Yet the geese grow on it and apparently thrive. The downside is that what they’re really eating is a toxic stew. The fat on these birds is laden with PCB’s — the same PCB’s that make it so that you’re not supposed to eat Lake Michigan fish more than once a week.

Deer, which after testing, are found to be CWD negative show another case where the poor are not being well served by the donations. Yes, the brains of these animals are tested but what if there are prions in the other parts of the animal? What if they were infected with prions that were in another deer and may have not yet traveled up to the brain?

This is another reason, besides the cold, that I stopped hunting deer a few years back.

The question everyone needs to ask themselves is, would you feed this to your own children? If the answer is no, then you should throw it away. This includes canned goods that are old and past their expiration date. Regardless of the common misconception that canned goods are good forever, they do actually perish. They just last longer.

One of the things that governments have been doing is donating the carcasses of the animals they kill to food pantries and food banks.

Jon Janowski, Director of Advocacy for Hunger Task Force (HTF), Wisconsin’s largest food bank to offer free food to the hungry, says “we don’t take deer — period.” He recollects when CWD was first found and HTF turned away donations. “Some people said to me, you’ve got to be kidding — a couple of deer found up north is going to worry you guys?” Janowski’s concerns now appear to be well founded as CWD infected deer were recently found as far south as the edge of Waukesha County.

When pressed as to why they don’t accept deer, Janowski said, “because all it takes is one infected piece of meat that we would distribute to an emergency food program and if someone eats it and gets sick, and it’s our responsibility because we donated the product to them. It’s not worth the risk.”

Karen Tredwell, of the Waukesha Food Pantry, says her pantry does accept deer. Tredwell said, “we haven’t had any major concerns because the places that do the processing don’t accept deer from areas infected with CWD … We don’t want to accept something that’s dangerous. We don’t have any venison right now so we don’t have to make a decision on anything we have but I’ll going to have to refer this back to our board to make a decision to whether to accept or not to accept future donations. We’re certainly not going to provide something that provides risk to a vulnerable population.”

When asked for her reaction on CWD affected deer being found at the edge of Waukesha County, Tredwell said, “I was very sad to hear it. We provide food to about 5000 people per month. We once stopped providing venison but information we received from the DNR told us it would be safe so we started offering it again. Our clients do ask for it and we have donors who want to give it.”

While Tredwell was careful to point out that the decision to offer or not offer venison was up to her board, she questioned, “if it’s on the edge of Waukesha county now, what’ the effect here?”

Two state legislators have the say so. State Senator Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) chairs the State Senate Health committee. Clearly she would be in support of the ban. The assembly is another story. Assembly Representative Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa) chairs the Assembly Health committee. It is Vukmir who may bury the bill.

In the Wisconsin legislature, committee Chairmen have a tremendous amount of power. They can choose to bury a bill or they can choose to advance it in committee. If they want to bury a bill, they simply don’t schedule it.

Since Vukmir is beholden to the business lobby, she may bury Doyle’s proposal. There is one odd twist in this story. Rumors are that the Tavern League may actually be in support of a bill that would ban smoking but exempt taverns for a specified period of time. It’s not yet known where the restaurant people will fall on this issue.

An interesting side note to this story is that if Vukmir doesn’t even allow a vote on it, she may find herself in the sights of Governor Jim Doyle. If she runs, as is expected, against State Senator Jim Sullivan in four years, she may find her enemies too plentiful to overcome and since she would have to give up her Assembly seat to run for the State Senate, she’ll find herself out of work — not a good thing for a single parent. It will be interesting to see how this story unravels over the next few weeks.

Last week, Wisconsin was ground zero in the political fight for embryonic stem cell research — the research that holds promise for a cure for this horrible disease.

Parkinson's disease breaks the connections between the brain and the body.  It traps people in their own bodies.  It doesn't affect the mind but the body doesn't react.  Words can't be formed.  To suffer from Parkinson's is to be trapped in a body that doesn't do what you want it to do.

"What a nice couple," I thought as I left their house.  They've been married for over 50 years.  He was a deputy before being struck with the disease and now she is his caretaker.

I was making a sales call (for what is irrelevant to this story).  Usually it takes about 90 minutes for my presentation.  For the first half hour the man sat mostly silent, content to listen.  His nose was running and he dabbed it with a tissue every couple of minutes.  The wife explained that he had Parkinson's Disease and that's why he was in a wheel chair and wasn't speaking.  He attempted a few questions but it was clearly a struggle for him to form words.  About 15 minutes later he had to rest and his wife wheeled him to the living room and spent the next 5 minutes helping to get him into his recliner.

Then he took his medicine.

I continued my presentation to the wife and as I was wrapping up I heard the husband call to his wife.  This didn't seem to be the same inarticulate man I had been pitching just a few moments earlier.  This was a man who was fully forming words.  He was speaking.

"The medicine must have started working," the wife said.

She went in and talked to him and then returned almost looking relieved.  A few moments later the man walked past.  Let me repeat that.  He WALKED past.  The same man who had been wheel chair bound just an hour earlier got up, walked past us and up a half flight of stairs by himself.

In the other room they were conferring on whether to go ahead with my proposal.  What struck me the most is that he was talking.  He was asking questions.  He was part of the conversation.  It was as though some miracle was bestowed upon him to give him back the power of speech and mobility.  The medicine had worked.

I came in to see him.  He was relaxing on his recliner but was twitching uncontrollably.  It reminded me of the twitching that actor Michael J. Fox had when he cut the campaign commercials for Governor Jim Doyle.  Talk show host Rush Limbaugh accused Fox of acting and intentionally twitching for the camera.  What I was seeing in front of me was no show.  This man was twitching uncontrollably but he had his faculties.  He had regained his speech if only for the duration of the medicine which he had taken.

Here was a deputy, I thought — a man who relied upon his physical strength and authority to do his job.  He had been struck with a disease which robbed him of his ability to do the job he loved and found himself a prisoner of his own body.

As I was leaving I thanked them for their business.  He smiled and said, "It looks like a great product.  We're looking forward to it."  I was glad I was able to help them.  I had given them the best price I could and I knew that they would be thrilled, but I also felt honored and enriched by having had the opportunity to meet this couple — to understand their struggle and to be given the opportunity to understand how this disease ravages the human body.

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Link: National Parkinson's Foundation 

What's the difference?  Why are biomedical researchers at UW-Madison, where the world's ground breaking stem cell research began, much more interested in embryonic stem cells than in less controversial types of human stem cells?

According to the UW-Madison researchers, embryonic stem cells are important to medical research because "of their ability to develop into virtually any other cell made by the human body.  In theory, if stem cells can be grown and their development directed in culture, it would be possible to grow cells of medical importance such as bone marrow, neural tissue or muscle."

Human embryonic cells come from fertilized embryos less than a week old.  The more mature a cell gets, the more "specialized" it becomes and won't regenerate damaged tissue very well, UW researchers say.  Adult cells have "an inability to proliferate" and are "difficult to grow in a lab," they add; and adults do not have stem cells in many vital organs — which means only embryonic cells, which have "capacity to become any kind of tissue," can be used to repair vital organs.

Embryonic stem cells are of particular interest to actor and Parkinson's disease sufferer Michael J. Fox because diseases such as Parkinson's "occur because of defects in one of just a few cells types," according to UW-Madison.  For people like Fox, "replacing faulty cells with healthy ones offers hope of lifelong treatment."

Congressman Green's "votes have set us back" on embryonic stem cell research, Fox says this week in TV ads supporting Gov. Jim Doyle.  Doyle, Fox says, "knows the promise it holds and the jobs it will create" in Wisconsin, where stem cell research began.

These days, you can't blame anyone for thinking politics is little more than gamesmanship.  But there is such a thing as an honest, impassioned political ad.

Below is Congressman Green's record on embryonic stem cell research, with source notes, released this week by the state Dems.  The record speaks for itself.

• Congressman Green voted against HR 810, a bipartisan bill to provide federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.  [Source: HR810, Vote #204, 5/24/05]

• Congressman Green stood with George W. Bush when the President vetoed HR 810.  Green then voted in July to sustain the President’s veto.  [Source: HR810, Vote 388, 7/19/06]

• Congressman Green voted for or cosponsored legislation to ban or even criminalize embryonic stem cell research eight times.  [Sources: HRes214, Vote #300, 7/31/01; HR2505, Vote #302, 7/31/01; HR2505, Vote #303, 7/31/01: HR2505, Vote #304, 7/31/01; HR534, Vote #37, 2/27/03; HR534, Vote #38, 2/27/03; HR534, Vote #39, 2/27/03; HR 1357]

• Congressman Green backed efforts by Republicans in the state Legislature to ban embryonic stem cell research.  [Sources: 2005 AB499; Green Press Release, 11/3/05]

• Like George W. Bush, Congressman Green likens embryonic stem cell research to killing. [Sources: Green Press Release, 7/19/06; Green Press Release, 2/12/03]

• The stem cell "plan" introduced by Congressman Green last month isn't backed by science and has been panned by editorial boards around the state.  The Wisconsin State Journal said “Don’t waste green on Green’s scheme,” and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called it “Green’s near-empty proposal.”  [Sources: Wisconsin State Journal, 9/8/06; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 9/8/06]

Even in the ad, Fox displays the uncontrollable twitches and verbal tremors that Parkinsons patients often exhibit, lending an element of urgency to his message.

Fox, looks to Wisconsin to pioneer the ground-breaking, life-saving research that would save families.  Green attacks this ad in a hair splitting manuever where he claims he's been a champion of "stem cell research".  But Fox focused on the type of stem cell research that nearly all experts point out has the most promise to cure the most disabling diseases — embryonic stem cell research.  Green conveniently sets aside the word "embryonic" because he has a solid record of opposing embryonic stem cell research.  For him to denounce the Fox ad as dishonest is hypocracy at its base form.

Fox speaks from the heart.  Now it is a question for voters — who is more believeable, a congressman who has supported President Bush in his attempt to limit embryonic stem cell research, or Fox, for whom this is a life-and-death issue.  

While we are sure Green's wishes to Fox to "get well" are sincere, it is a shame that his votes in congress speak otherwise.

Last week I marched down to Milwaukee Heartscan after hearing they were a sponsor of one of my favorite shows on Wisconsin Public Radio.  Twenty minutes later, a tech showed me the pics they took of my heart.  News was good.

I didn't need the test.  No one told me I should have one — I just figured it was worth it.  A friend of mine had his 40 year old son suddenly drop dead of a heart attack and not exactly being svelt, I figured my risk factors were fairly high.

This week I recieved the written results of my test.  I'm in the 99 percentile.  That means that I have no plaque or calcification and my heart is healthier than 99% of the population my age.  Well yeah, the doctor said I should drop some weight but armed with the scan, I'm pleased as can be.

So I went out to celebrate with some friends.  A few beers, a juicy steak and good company and my stress level just evaporates.

So for those of you who are thinking about doing it, go ahead.  Your insurance probably won't cover it but it's $200 well spent.

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If you decide to do it, you can donate an extra $5 to Hunger Task Force and they'll send you a CD of pictures of your heart. 

Also conspicuously absent from the ads running for Republican J.B. Van Hollen and Democrats Kathleen Falk and Peg Lautenschlager is any mention of the methamphetamine epidemic that has swept Wisconsin in the last few years.  Western counties have been hardest hit, and meth has run rampant in the Fon du Lac area and other corners of the state.  AG Lautenschlager has focused law enforcement resources on the epidemic, yet, still, meth use continues to rise.

So why is AG Lautenschlager boasting an decrease in meth lab busts this year, after those busts soared in the previous three years? And with meth on the rise, she touts a 30 percent decrease in meth cases.

It doesn't add up, a problem for any AG who's asking for a second term — and it has not escaped notice.  The Kathleen Falk campaign issued in August a detailed, well-researched position statement on "Fighting Meth," presenting a comprehensive approach to the problem.  

The Falk plan involves bringing federal resources to bear by declaring western Wisconsin a High Intensity Drug Trafficking area, and treating the epidemic as a public health problem by setting up treatment systems through the courts. It's a revolutionary approach in Wisconsin still, despite years of proven success with Day Reporting Centers and other incarceration alternatives which have reduced criminal justice costs by reducing the recidivism that drives costs. The Falk plan deserves a serious look as both a law enforcement and public health plan.

Unfortunately, media didn't bite on the issue, and neither have the campaign handlers, loaded with ample arsenal to attack Lautenschlager without looking at her anti-meth program. As the Falk position piece points out, cracking down on meth labs doesn't address the fact that most of the meth is now being imported into the state.

AG Lautenschlager, it should be pointed out, is telling only half the meth story on her campaign website. While this may have escaped notice from most campaign watchers, it did not escape notice from law enforcement in western Wisconsin, where meth flows across the Minnesota border.  They're endorsing Kathleen Falk.

Polk County DA Karen Olsen and Iowa County DA Larry Nelson announced they were supporting Falk in early August, joining Kenosha County DA Bob Zapf and others who say they want a more serious approach from the AG.  Here's what Polk County DA Olsen said when endorsing Falk:

"Wisconsin is facing serious issues, and we need serious people to address them. I look forward to working closely with Kathleen on the issues that are important to me – and other district attorneys – fixing the rising meth problem, putting a stop to growing violence in our communities, and fixing the backlog at the crime lab."

And seriously now, this race may never have been as close as Lautenschlager's friends in Madison seemed to have thought it was.

Mark Green's record of opposing stem cell research is catching up with him and Wisconsinites are finally getting it but Team Green is hoping to obscure the issue so people like my Mom who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis won't understand that he's snatched away her best chance at finding a cure.

Green says he's not opposed to stem cell research but why does he vote against it?  His apologists say that he's just opposed to embryonic stem cell research but that's the type of stem cell research that holds the most promise.  Green doesn't want embryos that would be discarded anyway to be used for research to find a cure.  Apparently he must believe that there's some big conspiracy out there to fertilize embroyos just to use them for research.  Normally I'd say that Green and his loonie pals should hunker down in their bunkers with their tinfoil hats and "the end is near" signs but the horifying thing is that he's not just the lunatic fringe of his party — he agreed with President Bush in the opposition to stem cells and voted to sustain Bush's veto.

Opponents of stem cell research say that there's no need to do research on embryos because there hasn't been any successes with embryonic stem cells.

Well DUH !!!

If you cut the funding and can't do any research because of it, you won't get any results !

That same argument could be made to cut funding for nearly any medical research.  The reason adult stem cells have been researched better is because funding has been there and the research has been done.

When all the researchers who don't already have an agenda are in agreement that embroynic stem cell research holds the most promise for a cure for many of the debilitating diseases that plague humankind, why is it that a guy like Mark Green would oppose stem cells?

Last month, George W Bush held a million dollar fundraiser for Mark Green to raise money for Green's bid to be Governor.  It was a ton of cash but fundraisers sometimes come with a prid-pro-quo.  Bush raises money for Green and Green votes to sustain Bush's veto on stem cell research.  It's insanely stupid of Green to roll for money, but there appears to be no other answer as to why Green would allow himself to be exposed to the criticism he worked so hard to earn.

But back to my Mom.  She's still in a wheelchair.  Her MS will continue to progress.  She's probably about 5 years away from hanging her head and drooling on herself.  So for those who claim that Mark Green is a compassionate conservative, I've got a tough time taking them seriously.

Over a year ago, Wauwatosa Alderman, now candidate for State Senate Jim Sullivan and others, were successful in fighting for the change to the Tosa ordinances to outlaw smoking.  Just last Tuesday the Surgeon General presented a speech entitled “The Health Effects of Secondhand Smoke” and said it was "beyond any doubt that secondhand smoke harms people’s health".

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Publications and related information from Surgeon General Vice Admiral Richard H. Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.S.: The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General