Category: Safety at Home

We would like to think that it would be self-evident that if guns are accessible to babies in a home, that this is a recipe for disaster. We would hope that adults–if they have the sense that God gave geese–would lock away their weapons in a high place in their home or garage and spend the extra nickel it might cost to purchase a gun safe, ultimately, to ensure the safety of their family and their family’s friends, relatives and anyone who might visit their home.

It’s a given, children get into things.  And, what is it about babies who gain access to guns, a worst case situation, that people do not seem to understand?  Children, especially toddlers, are curious and they put everything in their mouths. This scenario replays over and over again in cities and towns throughout this country.  And it needs to stop.

People… parents, and I use the term loosely… who allow this situation to occur should be charged with reckless endangerment, at a minimum, or worse…

According to Chicago Tribune’s article published online August 23, 2014, it was reported that a 3-year old boy was (no doubt, accidentally) shot in Chicago’s West Garfield Park neighborhood on the West Side, about 7:30 p.m.  A boy in a closet with at least one other child was playing with a gun.  It discharged hitting the 3-year old in the head. The boy’s father took the gun and fled the scene. The article said, “It is unclear whether the boy’s mother was at the home.” (per Tribune Reporters Williams-Harris, Perez, and Gorner, 8/23/2014).

What is wrong with this picture?  Plenty.  Need we say more?

On February 26, 2014, at 6:00 p.m. the president and CEO of Safe Kids Worldwide, Kate Carr, joins a discussion on Making Play Safe for Kids, hosted by the Arthur Blank Foundation and moderated by Sanjay Gupta, MD.

To listen to this event sign up at:   http://blankfoundation.org/play-safe

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services - January 17, 2014
Contact: HHS Press Office 202-205-0143

Surgeon General report says 5.6 million U.S. children will die prematurely unless current smoking rates drop

Report also finds cigarette smoking causes diabetes and colorectal cancer

Approximately 5.6 million American children alive today – or one out of every 13 children under age 18 – will die prematurely from smoking-related diseases unless current smoking rates drop, according to a new Surgeon General’s report.

Over the last 50 years, more than 20 million Americans have died from smoking. The new report concludes that cigarette smoking kills nearly half a million Americans a year, with an additional 16 million suffering from smoking-related conditions. It puts the price tag of smoking in this country at more than $289 billion a year in direct medical care and other economic costs.

Today’s report, The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General, comes a half century after the historic 1964 Surgeon General’s report, which concluded that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. Since that time, smoking has been identified as a cause of serious diseases of nearly all the body’s organs. Today, scientists add diabetes, colorectal and liver cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, erectile dysfunction, age-related macular degeneration, and other conditions to the list of diseases that cigarette smoking causes. In addition, the report concludes that secondhand smoke exposure is now known to cause strokes in nonsmokers.

“Smokers today have a greater risk of developing lung cancer than they did when the first Surgeon General’s report was released in 1964, even though they smoke fewer cigarettes,” said Acting Surgeon General Boris Lushniak, M.D., M.P.H. “How cigarettes are made and the chemicals they contain have changed over the years, and some of those changes may be a factor in higher lung cancer risks. Of all forms of tobacco, cigarettes are the most deadly – and cause medical and financial burdens for millions of Americans.”

Twenty years ago male smokers were about twice as likely as female smokers to die early from smoking-related disease. The new report finds that women are now dying at rates as high as men from many of these diseases, including lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and heart disease. In fact, death from COPD is now greater in women than in men.

“Today, we’re asking Americans to join a sustained effort to make the next generation a tobacco-free generation,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “This is not something the federal government can do alone. We need to partner with the business community, local elected officials, schools and universities, the medical community, the faith community, and committed citizens in communities across the country to make the next generation tobacco free.”

Although youth smoking rates declined by half between 1997 and 2011, each day another 3,200 children under age 18 smoke their first cigarette, and another 2,100 youth and young adults become daily smokers. Every adult who dies prematurely from smoking is replaced by two youth and young adult smokers.

The report concludes that the tobacco industry started and sustained this epidemic using aggressive marketing strategies to deliberately mislead the public about the harms of smoking. The evidence in the report emphasizes the need to accelerate and sustain successful tobacco control efforts that have been underway for decades.

“Over the last 50 years tobacco control efforts have saved 8 million lives but the job is far from over,” said HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Howard K. Koh, M.D., M.P.H. “This report provides the impetus to accelerate public health and clinical strategies to drop overall smoking rates to less than 10% in the next decade. Our nation is now at a crossroads, and we must choose to end the tobacco epidemic once and for all.”

The Obama Administration’s ongoing efforts to end the tobacco epidemic include enactment of the landmark Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which gives FDA regulatory authority over tobacco products; significant expansion of tobacco cessation coverage through the Affordable Care Act to help encourage and support quitting; new Affordable Care Act investments in tobacco prevention campaigns like the “Tips from Former Smokers” campaign to raise awareness of the long-term health effects of smoking and encourage quitting; and increases in the cost of cigarettes resulting from the federal excise tax increase in the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act.

To help communicate the report findings as widely as possible, the Surgeon General unveiled an

easy-to-read consumer guide with practical information on tobacco use and a 30-second public service announcement video.

For the full report, executive summary, consumer guide and PSA, visit http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/reports/50-years-of-progress/index.html.

For free help quitting smoking, smokers can call 1-800-QUIT-NOW or visit www.smokefree.gov or www.cdc.gov/tips.

According to the United States Fund for UNICEF President and CEO Caryl M. Stern’s latest  letter,  “Every day, 18,000 children under five die of things we can prevent.” That’s a startling figure!  And although the under-five child mortality rate in the world has been practically cut in half in the past few years, there are still areas where we can do better, where we can work with each other to lower the child mortality rate. In war-torn areas, the rate of childhood death caused by violence, accident and infectious diseases is high. Hunger and severe poverty around the world are also killers of young children. One would think that in 2013 we should be able to do better by our young.

Recently, I learned about a petition to the President by Unicef, “Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed” Pledge to help every country in the world reach a child mortality rate of 20 deaths or fewer per 1,000 live births by the year 2035.  In my book, that is a worthwhile commitment.  And among the efforts that contribute to lowering childhood deaths in developing countries are providing:

Lifesaving vaccines and insecticide-treated bed nets,
Emergency relief following natural disasters, and
Educational opportunities and providing educational materials.

But there is so much more to be done, even in the United States, to share information with each other and be informed about childhood survival. BeSafeChild.org’s mission is to educate and inform families how to help prevent accidents in the home and at school; to encourage parents to nurture and pay attention to their children–especially to their health needs, such as scheduling regular immunizations at the beginning of the school year which help reduce the spread of infectious diseases throughout communities.

Every small thing we can do to help keep parents, family members and caregivers informed about child safety and health, we hope, sends positive ripples to families and communities to ultimately benefit children–which we even dare hope might lower those childhood mortality figures!

Annually in the United States, approximately 300,000 children are injured in bicycle accidents and require emergency room visits to a hospital, and another 10,000 children must remain in the hospital due to injuries suffered in bike accidents.¹  BeSafeChild wants parents, family members and caregivers to know that bicycle safety is very important for young children especially, and here are some tips to help choose a safer, better ride for your kids:

1. Research the type and make of bicycle you are considering buying for your child. Check the CPSC.gov recalls website to see any children’s bicycles that have been recalled in the past. Parents may also want to consider a good quality, used bicycle for your child (in which case parents should do a little deeper research to make sure a used bike hasn’t been recalled.  (Even though selling recalled products of any kind is illegal, some recalled products, toys and bicycles frequently find their way to yard sales!)
2. Consider the area where your child will ride: Up and down the driveway, in a protected area at your home, on a school playground, or on a bicycle path with family and friends.
3. Once you have decided on a type and make of bicycle, consider the bicycle’s size and whether it is appropriate for your child.  Size, rather than a child’s age, is a better guiding factor for choosing a bicycle for a young child.  Can your child comfortably sit and reach the pedals?  Seats can be raised and lowered to allow your child to have the right pedal stroke. Can your child stand comfortably when holding and walking beside the bike? Check the comfortability of the bike’s seat too!
4. Consider whether your child would do better with a single speed and coaster brakes or gears and hand brakes. My first bike had hand brakes and “foot” brakes (but I’m not sure you will find any of those bikes on the market today!). BeSafeChild thinks that gears and hand brakes are usually better for older or more advanced riders. Most children adapt quickly to the use of “foot” or coaster brakes.
5. Consider whether your child will need training wheels at first to help get used to riding a bicycle. [There are balance bicycles which teach children to balance first. Since there are no pedals, children push their feet on the ground to make the bikes go forward. Once the act of balancing is achieved then a child can move up to a bike with pedals.]
6. Once you have selected your child’s bike, it’s very important to choose the right bike helmet.  According SafeKids’ statistics, only 45 percent of children always wear a helmet!  Helmets help protect children from head injuries and in some states they are required by law.  Check your state’s helmet law!  Helmet fit is important too. Helmets are recommended to fit snugly level on a child’s head, and should not slip or move side to side. Chin straps should always be buckled and form a “V” under a child’s ears.

Every new biking season, take your child’s bike for a bike safety check-up, including tires (condition and inflation), brakes, parts, and oiled chains! BeSafeChild thinks its also good to have a bell on the bicycle and a light on the front and reflectors on the back!
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¹Kids Health, Bike Safety, The Nemours Foundation, 2013, http://kidshealth.org/kid/watch/out/bike_safety.html