Advocacy in Action

June 10, 2008 Update

SOPHE Supports Resolution to Increase Federal Commitment For Prevention

Early August SOPHE joined many organizations by signing onto a letter from Rep Lucille Roybal-Allard, the Congressional Study Group on Public Health, the Congressional Prevention Caucus, and the Congressional Diabetes Caucus, expressing support for increased Federal commitment prioritizing prevention and encouraging the Congressional Budget Office to consider the health care savings associated with reduced chronic disease burden as a result of clinical and preventive services and programs when formulating health care cost estimates.
Sign-On Letter

SOPHE Supports Increase Funding for CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity

SOPHE and 80+ organizations and individuals sent a letter to the Senate appropriations committee to support increased funding for CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity to $65 million to enable CDC/DNPAO to fund all states at a minimal level. To fund all state applications at the levels requested in the grants would require $90 million, which would be even better.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently allocated its state grant funding through its Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity (DNPAO). As a result of the grant reallocations, 13 states -- including Illinois, Florida, Oklahoma, Maine, Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Vermont, New Mexico, Arizona, South Dakota, and Missouri -- will lose their DNPAO funding as of July 1, 2008. In addition, 13 other states that applied for grants have never had grants and will remain unfunded; those states are Mississippi, Hawaii, Alabama, Delaware, Alaska, Nevada, Louisiana, Ohio, North Dakota, Wyoming, Kansas, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

SOPHE Urges Senators Lieberman and Warner to Include Public Health Language in Their Climate Change Bill
Sign-On Letter

SOPHE Signs On to HR 5496, the Public Health Preparedness Workforce Development Act of 2008

Iintroduced by Representative Doris Matsui (D-California), This legislation would create incentives for students and graduates in public health disciplines to enter the public health workforce
Sign-On Letter

SOPHE Calls Attention to Lack of Public Health Representatives to Commission on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation

In alignment with SOPHE resolution on Environmental Health Promotion, SOPHE urged House Interior Appropriations Chairman Obey to include the CDC Director on the Commission on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation as outlined in a report supporting FY 2008 appropriations for the Department of Interior, Environment and Related Agencies. The nation's state and local health departments deal with the negative consequences associated with global climate change - from changes in vector borne diseases to impacts on drinking water supply to extreme weather events, it is vital that CDC play a key role in the development of proactive global climate change preparedness strategies for the federal government.
Sign-On Letter

Vision for a Healthier America Receives Endorsement from SOPHE and 90 Organizations

Drafted by Trust for America's Health (TFAH) in partnership with several national public health organizations, a platform' document, Our Vision for A Healthier America received SOPHE's Endorsement.

The platform reflects four major themes:

• We believe prevention must drive our nation's health strategy
• We believe Americans deserve healthy and safe places to live, work and play
• We believe every community should be prepared to meet the threats of infectious disease, terrorism, and natural disasters
• And, we believe Americans deserve to know what government is doing to keep them healthy and safe

The goal of this document is to make wellness and disease prevention national priorities, and to ensure that these issues are identified as essential components of any national debate on health care.

SOPHE Supports Increase of CDC Budget FY'08

SOPHE joined other organizations of the Campaign for Public Health in signing onto a letter asking Congress to increase funding for the CDC to just over $10 million for fiscal year 2008. This budget would ensure funding for core programs including discretionary funding of the agency's day-to-day operations and support CDC's protection and disease prevention efforts. While the CDC's core program budget has been on the decline, the cost of the federal treasure of treating the ill has skyrocketed. Of all federal health spending, less than 4 percent is spent on prevention efforts and only about 0.4 percent of all federal health spending is directed to CDC.

SOPHE Advocates for for $10 Million for the National Violent Death Reporting Systems in FY 2008

Sign-On Letter

SOPHE Opposes the Tiarht Amendment

SOPHE joined other organizations to express strong opposition to a provision in recent appropriations legislation funding the Justice Department that significantly restricts the disclosure of crime gun trace data by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). This provision, known as the "Tiahrt Amendment" after its original sponsor, Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Ka.), is depriving the public, and law enforcement authorities, of valuable information about guns used in crime. As a result, it is hindering efforts by communities across the Nation to combat the scourge of illegal guns and the deadly violence they cause.

SOPHE respectfully urges that the Tiahrt Amendment not be included in the appropriations bill for fiscal year 2008.

Tiarht Letter

SOPHE Support Inclusion of Population-Based Intervention for NCI's Assessment of Science for Tobacco Control

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is conducting a State of the Science Conference on Tobacco Use: Prevention, Cessation and Control (see http://consensus.nih.gov/2006/2006TobaccoSOS029html.htm). The purpose of this effort is to assess the current state of the science related to tobacco control --what works, what does not, where do the gaps exist and other issues, and a routine activity that National Institutes of Health (NIH) does for a variety of issues that they fund.

SOPHE has learned that the criteria used by the NIH review panel in determining what to consider as "evidence" for assessing the science may be overly restrictive and limited, giving greater weight, or even focusing exclusively on evidence such as randomized control trials and not considering other research invoked in such evidence reviews as US Surgeon General Reports and CDC Best Practices guidelines. SOPHE believes that If the NIH panel uses this "evidence" standard, the data showing the effectiveness of population-level interventions such as tax increases, paid media campaigns, smokefree laws and comprehensive tobacco control programs would not be taken into consideration. SOPHE questions the outcome of an assessment of what works in tobacco control when population-based evidence is not seriously considered, which would undermine years of public policy work. SOPHE has partnered with the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids and other national public health organizations to push for a strong consideration of population-based interventions for this assessment.

SOPHE Calls on EPA to Strengthen Standards of the Clean Air Act

SOPHE submitted a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to strengthen the standards for fine and course particles of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and adhere to scientific evidence indicating the need for stronger standards. Since 1997, over 2,000 peer-reviewed studies have been published demonstrating the serious adverse health effects of exposure to particulate matter. These adverse health effects include heart attacks, strokes, asthma attacks, reduced lung development in children, and increased risk of dying from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.

SOPHE Letter to EPA

SOPHE Opposes House Appropriations Funding for Unproved and Ineffective Abstinence-Only-Until Marriage Programs

SOPHE joined other national health and public health organizations to urge the House Appropriations Committee to oppose any funding for abstinence-only-until marriage programs. SOPHE's letter states, "As an organization committed to sound science and the health and welfare of our nation's youth, we wish to express our profound concern regarding funding levels for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs appropriated through the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) spending bill".

SOPHE urged the House Appropriations Committee to dedicate funding from unproven abstinence-only-until-marriage programs to other worthwhile and chronically underfunded public health programs with proven results, such as programs that promote family planning, HIV prevention, and STD prevention, as well as those that support health and medical services for children. The nation's taxpayers-and young people-deserve to see their hard earned tax dollars fund only programs that have been proven effective.

Sign-on Letter

SOPHE and the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids Advocate for FDA Authority over Tobacco Products
Pending legislation in Congress is proving to be increasingly necessary as the most recent FTC report shows massive spending on tobacco marketing. Expenditures on total tobacco marketing are at historically high levels, with the most recent data reporting that $36.6 million are spent per day to market this deadly and addictive product. It is particularly upsetting that tobacco companies are spending the bulk of these funds on price discounts that make cigarettes more affordable for children, the most price-sensitive consumers, while undermining state efforts to reduce tobacco use by increasing tobacco taxes. The FTC report highlights the urgent need for Congress to enact pending legislation that would grant the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products. Also, this FDA legislation would provide states the authority to regulate cigarette marketing, for the first time. To learn more about this FDA legislation or to take action, visit: http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/. The FTC reports can be found at: www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/04/cigaretterpt.shtm

SOPHE Signs On to Bring Attention of Congress to Findings of Recent IOM Report, “Ending the Tobacco Problem—A Blueprint for the Nation”
SOPHE joins fellow organizations in backing The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (H.R. 1108/S. 625), bipartisan legislation giving the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority over tobacco products. In addition, SOPHE and supporters are urging Congress to take special consideration of a new report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and to take action accordingly.

The IOM report, “Ending the Tobacco Problem—A Blueprint for the Nation,” strongly recommends that Congress enact legislation granting the FDA broad regulatory authority over the manufacture, distribution, marketing and use of tobacco products. The report finds that current steps at the state and local level alone are inadequate to remedy the tobacco epidemic in America. Federal intervention is required.

As stated in the IOM report, “the time has come for Congress to exercise its acknowledged authority to regulate the production, marketing and distribution of tobacco products.” The time for action is now.
Sign-On Letter

SOPHE Signs On: Health Tracking and Biomonitoring
On March 15, 2007, SOPHE joined fellow health organizations in urging support for significantly increasing funding for the CDC’s National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program and to enhance the Environmental Health Laboratory’s biomonitoring capacity. The Tracking Program/Network provides government agencies with the information needed to develop and evaluate effective public health actions to prevent or control chronic and acute diseases that may be attributed to environmental hazards. CDC’s biomonitoring program currently characterized exposure to more than 450 toxicants. For more information on these programs, visit: http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/tracking/biomonitoring.htm