Prevent SIDS:
Please Help In The Letter-Writing Campaign
Against Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)

It is well-established that most, about 60%, SIDS deaths could be prevented by cigarette control—a cigarette ban assuring no smoking around babies and pregnant women. The tobacco connection to SIDS was established by the 1850's. "Cases are reported in medical journals of babes being poisoned by sleeping in the same bed, or living in the same room, with fathers who used this poison [tobacco] in great quantities."—George Trask, Letters on Tobacco, for American Lads; or, Uncle Toby's Anti-Tobacco Advice To His Nephew Billy Bruce (Fitchburg, Mass: Trask Pub, 1860), p 35.

"The infant lungs suffer, and become diseased by inhaling the atmosphere of a room poisoned by the tobacco user’s tainted breath. Many infants are poisoned beyond remedy by sleeping in beds with their tobacco-using fathers. By inhaling the poisonous tobacco effluvia, which is thrown from the lungs and pores of the skin, the system of the infant is filled with poison. While it acts upon some infants as a slow poison, and affects the brain, heart, liver, and lungs, and they waste away and fade gradually, upon others, it has a more direct influence, causing spasms, fits, paralysis, and sudden death. The bereaved parents mourn the loss of their loved ones, and wonder at the mysterious providence of God which has so cruelly afflicted them, when Providence designed not the death of these infants. They died martyrs to filthy lust for tobacco. Every exhalation of the lungs of the tobacco slave, poisons the air about him," says Ellen G. White, The Health Reformer (January, 1872), pp 58-59.

A significant reason for such deaths is that tobacco products, when set afire, emit Toxic Tobacco Smoke (TTS) containing deleterious emissions, e.g., carbon monoxide, 42,000 ppm, even though it is unsafe above around 100 ppm. See the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (DHEW) book, Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, PHS Pub 1103, Table 4, p 60 (1964).

“Carbon monoxide is a dangerous substance. The molecule binds more strongly to the hemoglobin in the blood than does oxygen. A person breathing air that contains even a small percentage (one part in 250) of carbon monoxide may die of suffocation.”—Gordon P. Johnson, Bonnie B. Barr, and Michael D. Leyden, Physical Science (New York: Addison-Wesly Pub Co, Inc, 1988), pp 298-299. 1/250 = 40,000 ppm; cigarette smoke contains more than that (42,000 ppm).

Data shows that "81 per cent of the infants who died of SIDS had been exposed to cigarette smoke, while only 58 per cent of those who died of other causes were exposed to second-hand smoke. . . . more brain cells in the part of the brain responsible for vital functions like breathing and blood circulation had died in babies that succumbed to SIDS," says "First direct link of passive smoking to cot death" (22 April 2009). "Passive [forced] smoking has long been identified as a risk factor for SIDS."

"Chemicals in secondhand smoke are found in brain tissue, and may interfere with the regulation of an infant's breathing. Compared to infants who die of other causes, more infants who die from SIDS: [a.] Have a higher concentration of nicotine in their lungs. Nicotine is the addictive chemical found in tobacco smoke. [b.] Have a higher level of cotinine, a marker for secondhand smoke exposure," says Louis Neipris, M.D., " Secondhand smoke: a danger during and after pregnancy" (19 May 2010).

Here in citation style (author, title, volume number, journal name abbreviated, pages, year) are examples of the voluminous analyses on the TTS role in SIDS, long published in medical journals (and including some books):

O'Lane JM. “Some Fetal Effects of Maternal Cigaret Smoking.” 22 Obstet Gynecol 181-184 (1963)

Zabriski JR. “Effect of Cigarette Smoking During Pregnancy. Study of 2000 Cases.” 21 Obstet Gynecol 405-411 (1963)

Steele R, Langworth JT. “The Relationship of Antenatal and Postnatal Factors to Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy.” 94 Can Med Assoc J 1165-1171 (1966)

          Kullander S, Kallen B. “A Prospective Study of Smoking and Pregnancy.” 50 Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand 83-94 (1971)

          Murphy JF, Mulcahy R. “The Effects of Cigarette Smoking, Maternal Age and Parity on the Outcome of Pregnancy.” 67 J Ir Med Assoc 309-313 (1974)

          Schrauzer GN, Rhead WJ, Saltzstein SL. “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: Plasma Vitamin E Levels and Dietary Factors.” 5 Ann Clin Lab Sci 31-37 (1975)

          Bergman AB, Wiesner LA. “Relationship of Passive Cigarette-smoking to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.” 58 Pediatrics 665-668 (1976)

          Naeye RL, Ladis B, Drage JS. “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, A Prospective Study.” 130 Am J Dis Child 1207-1210 (1976)

          Kline J, Stein ZA, Susser M, Warburton D. “Smoking: A Risk Factor for Spontaneous Abortion.” 297 N Engl J Med 793-796 (1977)

          Himmelberger D, Brown BW, Cohen EN. “Cigarette Smoking During Pregnancy and The Occurrence of Spontaneous Abortion and Congenital Abnormality.” 108 Am J Epidemiol 470-479 (1978)

          Lewak N, van den Berg BJ, Beckwith JB. “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Risk Factors.” 18 Clin Pediatr 404-411 (1979)

          Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Smoking, 113 Am J Epidemiology (5) 583 (May 1981)

          Stein Z, Kline J, Levin B, Susser M, Warburton D. “Epidemiologic Studies of Environmental Exposures in Human Reproduction.” In: Berg GG, Maillie HD, eds. Measurement of Risks. New York, NY: Plenum Press, 163-183 (1981)

          Hemminki K, Mutanen P, Saloniemi I. “Smoking and The Occurrence of Congenital Malformations and Spontaneous Abortions: Multivariate Analysis.” 145 Am J Obstet Gynecol 61-66 (1983)

          Knowelden J, Keeling J, Nicholl JP. A Multicentre Study of Post-neonatal Mortality. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1985.

          Selevan SG, Lindbohm ML, Hornung RW, Hemminki K. “A Study of Occupational Exposure to Antineoplastic Drugs and Fetal Loss in Nurses.” 313 N Engl J Med 1173-1178 (1985).

          VandenBerg M. “Smoking During Pregnancy and Post-Neonatal Death.” 98 N Z Med J 1075-1078 (1985)

          Ericson A, Kallen B. “An Epidemiological Study of Work with Video Screens and Pregnancy Outcome: II. A case-control study.” 9 Am J Ind Med 459-475 (1986)

          Hoffman HJ, Damus K, Hillman L, Krongrad E. “Risk Factors For SIDS. Results of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development SIDS Cooperative Epidemiological Study.” 533 NY Acad Sci 13-30 (1988)

          Hoffman HJ, Hunter JC, Ellish NJ, Janerick DT, Goldberg J. “Adverse Reproductive Factors and The Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.” In: RM Harper, HJ Hoffman eds. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: Risk Factors and Basic Mechanisms. New York: PMA Publishing, 153-175 (1988)

          Malloy MH, Kleinman JC, Land GH, Schramm WF. “The Association of Maternal Smoking With Age and Cause of Infant Death.” 128 Am J Epidemiol 46-55 (1988)

          Kraus JF, Greenland S, Bulterys M. “Risk Factors for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in the US Collaborative Perinatal Project.” 18 Int J Epidemiol 113-120 (1989).

          McGlashan ND. “Sudden Infant Death in Tasmania 1980-1986: A Seven Year Prospective Study.” 29 Soc Sci Med 1015-26 (1989)

          Sandahl B. “Smoking Habits and Spontaneous Abortion.” 31 Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol 23-31 (1989)

          Nicholl JP, O'Cathain A. “Epidemiology of Babies Dying at Different Ages from The Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.” 43 J Epidemiol Community Health 133-139 (1989)

          Bulterys MG, Greenland S, Kraus JF. “Chronic Fetal Hypoxia and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: Interaction Between Maternal Smoking and Low Hematocrit During Pregnancy.” 86 Pediatrics 535-540 (1990)

          Gilbert RE, Fleming PJ, Azaz Y, Rudd P. “Signs of Illness Preceding Sudden Unexpected Death in Infants.” 300 Brit Med J 1237-1239 (1990)

          Haglund B, Cnattingius S. “Cigarette Smoking as a Risk Factor for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.” 80 Am J Public Health 29-32 (1990).

          Engelberts A. Cot Death in the Netherlands: An Epidemiological Study. Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1991. (MD Thesis.)

          Li D-K, Dalang JR. “Maternal Smoking, Low Birth Weight and Ethnicity in Relation to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.” 134 Am J Epidemiol 958-964 (1991).

          Mitchell EA, Scragg R, Stewart AW, et al. “Results from the first year of the New Zealand Cot Death Study.” 104 N Z Med J 71-76 (1991)

          Schoendorf KC, Kiely JL. “Relationship of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome to Maternal Smoking During and After Pregnancy.” 90 Pediatrics 905-908 (1992)

          Windham GC, Swan SH, Fenster L. “Parental Cigarette Smoking and The Risk of Spontaneous Abortion.” 135 Am J Epidemiol 1394-1403 (1992)

          Armstrong BG, McDonald AD, Sloan M. “Cigarette, Alcohol, and Coffee Consumption and Spontaneous Abortion,” 82 Am J Public Health 85-87 (1992)

          Nicholl JP, O'Cathain A. “Antenatal Smoking, Postnatal Passive Smoking, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.” In: Poswillo D, Alberman E, eds. Effects of Smoking on the Fetus, Neonate and Child. Oxford: Oxford Medical Publications, 1992.

          Mitchell EA, Taylor BJ, Ford RPK, Stewart AW, Becroft DM,Thompson JM, et al. “Four Modifiable and Other Major Risk Factors or Cot Death: The New Zealand Study.” 28 J Paediar Child Health (suppl) S3-8 (1992)

          Mitchell EA, Ford RPK, Stewart AW, Taylor BJ, Becroft DM,Thompson JM, Scragg R, Hassall IB, Barry DM, and EM Allen. “Smoking and The Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.” 91 Pediatrics (#5) 893-896 (1 May 1993) (Conclusion: “Passive tobacco smoking [TTS] is causally related to SIDS.”)

          Mitchell EA. “Smoking: The Next Major and Modifiable Risk Factor.” In: Rognum TO, ed. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: New Trends in The Nineties. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 114-118 (1995)

          DiFranza, Joseph R., and Lew, Robert A. “Effect of Maternal Cigarette Smoking on Pregnancy Complications and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.” 40 J of Family Practice 385-394 (1995)

          Klonoff-Cohen HS, Edelstein SL, Schneider E, Srinivasan IP, Kaegi D, Chang JC, et al. “The Effect of Passive Smoking and Tobacco Exposure Through Breast Milk on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.” 273 J Am Med Ass'n 795-798 (1995)

          Blair PS, Fleming PJ, Bensley D, Smith I, Bacon C, Taylor E, et al. “Smoking and The Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: Results of 1993-5 Case-control Study for Confidential Inquiry into Still-births and Deaths in Infancy.” 313 Brit Med J 195-198 (27 July 1996)

          Joseph Milerad, MD, PhD; Åshild Vege, MD; Siri H. Opdal, MD; and Torleiv O. Rognum, MD, PhD. “Objective Measurements of Nicotine Exposure in Victims of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and in Other Unexpected Child Deaths,” 133 Pediatrics (#2) 232-236 (Aug 1998) (“Victims of SIDS are more often and more heavily exposed to tobacco smoke doses before death than are infants who have sudden infectious deaths.”)

          James, C, Klenka H, Manning D. “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: Bed Sharing with Mothers Who Smoke,” 88 Archives of Disease in Childhood (#2) 112-113 (Feb 2003)

          Jan Carey, et al., “Study links cigarette smoke, SIDS” (Tobacco Control, March 2004)

See also the SIDS Organization's “Current Issues and SIDS.”

The book by John H. Kellogg, M.D., LL.D., F.A.C.S., Tobaccoism, or, How Tobacco Kills, (Battle Creek, Michigan: The Modern Medicine Publishing Co, 1922), p 116, refers to the SIDS concept:
“Many men smoke at home and expose their families to the poisonous influence of tobacco smoke. The effects upon feeble infants and sensitive wives must be highly injurious and sometimes deadly.”

The book by Meta Lander, The Tobacco Problem (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1882), pp 62-63, refers to the SIDS concept:
“Medical journals report the poisoning of babes from sharing the bed of a tobacco father, and even from being in the room where he smoked; and infant deaths have occurred from no other cause. Says Dr. Trall: “Many an infant has been killed outright in its cradle by the tobacco-smoke with which a thoughtless father filled an unventilated room.”

The book by Botany Professor Bruce Fink, Tobacco (Cincinnati: The Abingdon Press, 1915), p 30, refers to the SIDS concept:
“medical records state that persons have been killed by sleeping in rooms where tobacco has been rasped, and that babies have been killed by tobacco smoke from the pipe or cigars of fathers.”

The book by Herbert H. Tidswell, M.D., The Tobacco Habit: Its History and Pathology: A Study in Birth-Rates (London: J. & A. Churchill, 1912), p 185, refers to the SIDS concept: "Infants of the second class above noted [mothers exposed on-the-job to tobacco, who, kept unaware of the danger, breast-feed them] are almost certain to die."

Since then, we have now thoroughly verified the deadliness of tobacco smoke in terms of killing babies, the 'Sudden Infant Death Syndrome' (SIDS) concept.

The quantities of tobacco chemicals, above safe limits, tobacco plumes, tobacco particulates build up in the lungs, causing hardening on the edges, thus tightness of breath. As the lung tissue expands and contracts with the flow of air, the particulates suspended in the air creates a sensation that can be compared to passing a kidney stone, including significant pain. The lungs' action attempting to expel the particulates continues that sensation on and on, even for weeks after the exposure. When the exposure is continued without allowing time for the lungs to clear, the hardening caused by the build-up of particulates continues until breathing can no longer occur.

DiFranza, JR and Lew, RA, "Effect of Maternal Cigarette on Pregnancy Complications and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome," 40 J Family Practice 385-394 (1995), say
"Tobacco use is an important preventable cause of . . . deaths from . . . SIDS. . . . The cigarette . . . injures or kills a sizable proportion of its users when used as intended by the manufacturer. The harm caused by the cigarette is not limited to the user, however, as unborn children and infants are . . . harmed by other people's use of tobacco."

See also
  • "Smoking outside 'harms children'" (BBC Online, 11 February 2004)

  • "Slipping outside for a cigarette fails to protect children's health" (by Tara Womersley, The Scotsman, 11 February 2004)

  • "'Thirdhand Smoke' Can Imperil Babies" (USA Today, 6 August 2006) ("Babies can absorb particles and gases emitted by cigarettes from walls, clothes, hair and skin -- including up to 90 percent of the nicotine found in tobacco smoke. . . . babies, who explore the world by crawling and touching, can swallow, inhale, or absorb dangerous chemicals from cigarette-smoke residue, which can stay in the environment for months . . . . even babies whose parents only smoked outside had detectable levels of the nicotine byproduct cotinine in their bodies, perhaps from hugging their mothers.")
  • Foreseeable Result of Ultrahazardous Activity
    Taking a baby's life is an unconstitutional "taking." The baby does not "consent" to die, i.e., has the right to life, even on the property of others, its parents, neighbors, whomever.

    Rights are not so limited that they do not exist except on one's own property!

    Foreseeable deaths are "natural and probable consequences" of the disregard of peoples' (including babies') right to "fresh and pure air."

    Thus the deaths are of the "intended," "premeditated" "universal malice" type as our webpage on lawbook definitions of such terms shows, thus making tobacco-caused SIDS deaths a criminal law matter.

    TTS exposure causes Increased Risk of Death. The problem is so severe, and worldwide, that the World Health Organization deems Toxic Tobacco Smoke (TTS) (sometimes called environmental tobacco smoke, or ETS) a real and substantial threat to child health, causing death and suffering throughout the world.

    Due to the prevalence of others' TTS, nonsmokers, including infants, are in fact regularly subject to being poisoned with cigarettes’ illegal massive, "ultrahazardous," toxic chemicals. Death by breathing stopping is a terrifying event. Tobacco pushers are terrorists in this regard.

    "It has rightly been observed that, if a 'non-smoker' is strictly construed as one who has never had any contact with tobacco-smoke, non-smokers in any . . . urban society are virtually non-existent.

    "Not only, in such societies, is practically everyone exposed to passive inhalation of tobacco smoke, but a very considerable number of 'non-smokers' have once tried . . . smoking before renouncing the practice."—Paul S. Larson, Ph.D., H. B. Haag, M.D., and Herbert Silvette, Ph.D., "Measurement of Tobacco Smoking," 88 Medical Times (#4) 417-429, at p 425 (April 1960).

    If smokers recognized that they pose a danger to others, this might be soluble. But smokers are typically addicted, brain damaged, abulic, acalculic, unable to recognize and act on even simple pertinent life-saving facts such as "don't ingest poison"!! And the media, politicians and accessories, intentionally refuse to cite the tobacco danger in SIDS, instead they intentionally distract you, by their focusing on minor, fragmentary, aspects such as "sleep position"!

    When media and others commit such distortions, distractions, remeber George Orwell said, "The process [of deception] has to be conscious [intentional], or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. . . . To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary.”—in the book Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).

    "Most smokers do not [even] view themselves at increased risk of heart disease or cancer."—John P. Ayanian, M.D., M.P.P., Paul J. Cleary, Ph.D., "Perceived Risks of Heart Disease and Cancer Among Cigarette Smokers," 281 J Am Med Ass'n (11) 1019-1021 (17 March 1999). Wherefore as they do not perceive such basics, don't even see the danger to themselves, they definitely do not realize the danger that smoking poses to nonsmokers in ways such as this, causing SIDS.

    Wherefore nonsmokers'—children and adults—only protection is enforcement of pertinent cigarette control laws, including prosecution of the pushers on murder charges pursuant to the transferred intent doctrine. To protect YOUR child from this "ultrahazardous activity," seek prosecution for the deaths of smokers and other nonsmokers killed by cigarettes.

    After-the-fact prosecution of the killer(s) is too little, too late for those already deceased, but it can serve to protect you, your family, the still living.

    Do NOT be distracted off getting the criminal laws against poisoning and murder enforced. There are con artists are there who want to distract onto ONLY the civil law, specially, only onto the civil law remedy of mere money damages. Providing money damages to survivors, while better than nothing, does not vindicate the laws against intentional poisonings and killings, does not fully protect YOU.

    To protect yourself and your family, it is essential that your area prosecutors be caused to enforce the already-existing laws against poisoning and murder.

    An underlying fact is the adverse impact of cigarettes' toxic chemicals on the body. Reason: cigarettes contain large quantities of well-established deleterious ingredients. This fact is so well-established in medicine that an appellate court took judicial notice of the fact, in the case of Banzhaf v F.C.C., 132 US App DC 14, 29; 405 F2d 1082, 1097 (1968) cert den 396 US 842 (1969). For details, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Reducing the Health Consequences of Smoking: 25 Years of Progress: a Report of the Surgeon General, Publication CDC 89-8411, Table 7, pp 86-87 (1989), lists examples of deleterious ingredients including but not limited to:

    acetaldehyde (1.4+ mg)arsenic (500+ ng)benzo(a)pyrene (.1+ ng)
    cadmium (1,300+ ng)crotonaldehyde (.2+ µg)chromium (1,000+ ng)
    ethylcarbamate 310+ ng)formaldehyde (1.6+ µg)hydrazine (14+ ng)
    lead (8+ µg)nickel (2,000+ ng)radioactive polonium (.2+ Pci)

    Actually, judicial notice of cigarettes' deleteriousness was taken as long ago as pursuant to an 1897 Tennessee anti-cigarette law, in Austin v State, 101 Tenn 563; 566-7; 48 SW 305, 306; 70 Am St Rep 703 (1898) affirmed 179 US 343 (1900). Michigan soon thereafter passed a law banning unsafe cigarettes, law number MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216 [Details].

    By then, 1897, cigarettes' link to SIDS was already well-established, established over four decades before. "Cases are reported in medical journals of babes being poisoned by sleeping in the same bed, or living in the same room, with fathers who used this poison [tobacco] in great quantities."—George Trask, Letters on Tobacco, for American Lads; or, Uncle Toby's Anti-Tobacco Advice To His Nephew Billy Bruce (Fitchburg, Mass: Trask Pub, 1860), p 35.

    See also La Tabac et la Famille: Il Cause la Rareté et la Sterilité des mariages, la Débilité Native et la Mortalité des Enfants, la Dépopulation des Pays, by Dr. Hippolyte Adéon Dépierris (1810-1889) (Paris: E. Dentu, 1881).

    Some uneducated people feel that the tobacco link to SIDS is a new discovery. The herein cited 1860 - 1881 data helps make the point, "When something 'new' in medical literature is published, it is a wise precaution to read previous literature on the subject—that 'something new' may not really be new," a quote from Alison B. Froese and Prof. A. Charles Bryan, "High Frequency Ventilation," 123 Am Rev Resp Dis (#3) 249-250 (March 1981). This is especially so in view of politicians' and media mass censorship and/or disinformation that conceals so many tobacco effects.

    Due to cigarettes' deleterious ingredients, cigarettes, when lit, emit deleterious emissions. The pertinent legal term is "ultrahazardous activity." The Department of Health, Education and Welfare (DHEW), Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, PHS Pub 1103, Table 4, p 60 (1964), lists examples of cigarettes' deleterious emissions (contrasted to the chemicals' "speed limits" set by the safety rule 29 CFR § 1910.1000) including but not limited to:

    Chemical
    Quantity
    "Speed Limit"
    acetaldehyde 3,200 ppm 200.0 ppm
    acrolein 150 ppm     0.5 ppm
    ammonia 300 ppm 150.0 ppm
    carbon monoxide 42,000 ppm 100.0 ppm
    formaldehyde 30 ppm     5.0 ppm
    hydrogen cyanide 1,600 ppm   10.0 ppm
    hydrogen sulfide 40 ppm   20.0 ppm
    methyl chloride 1,200 ppm  100.0 ppm
    nitrogen dioxide 250 ppm     5.0 ppm

    In view of these toxic chemicals in such massive, "ultrahazardous," quantities, it is easy to understand why they kill babies. They kill adults!!

    The process of tobacco smoke poisons and particulates entering (assaulting) the victim is painful both during and after the entry process.

  • The stench can be compared to poison gases, ammonia and/or muriatic acid. The body recoils. But with tobacco smoke, the victim is forced to continue the inhalation process as trapped, cannot escape or leave.

  • The heart's rhythmic beating is assaulted, and it skips beats, more and more beats. If the victim lives, even days later, an EKG shows such irregularities still occurring.

  • Toxins in the blood dilute the oxygen supply. Oxygen deprivation is the result.

  • The particulates get caught within the small airways of the lungs, and as air moves them back and forth, the grating motion tears at, rubs against, and pains them, like rubbing sandpaper, making breathing a many-times-a-minute torture, assaulting the will to live under such conditions.

  • Chunks of particulates become lodged and trapped within the small airways, causing continuing pain, both while erect and while prone, forcing the victim to wriggle and squirm around to try to escape into a less uncomfortable position, if at all possible. As they move along and about, the sensation is like that of trying to pass a 'kidney stone,' only multipled many times over. These chunks become larger and increase in number, noticeably shrinking available lung air space, and creating a feeling of pressure. (Click here for before and after photoes, especially note the a last-stages photo.)

  • Overnight some particulates collect in the back of the mouth, a sticky mass, leading to efforts to expel them on arising, but with difficulty as too young and unable to sit up, bend over, and spit, so forced to 'gargle' this mass lest 'drown.'

  • A similiar mass of toxins develops in the nose, increasing difficulty breathing especially if unable (at that young age of development, too young to 'blow nose'), to expel them.

  • As oxygen supply dwindles to the brain, sensations of light-headness develop.

  • Vision impairment becomes noticeable, especially difficulty focusing.

  • As the toxics permeate the area, there is no escape. The cycle continues and worsens further sapping the will to live, until death occurs by heart stoppage, breathing stoppage, or anoxia or combination thereof. . . but leaving little organic trace.
  • For further information, and sample rebuttal material to reply to disinformation, TCPG recommends the Action on Smoking and Health, Washington DC anti-SIDS material. One of its significant rebuttal points refers to the concept that although most smoked infants do not die of SIDS, that fact does not disprove the toxic substances as a cause.
    "One could as well argue that, since the vast majority of people who smoke in bed don't start fires which kill their children, and many children are killed by fires in homes where parents don't smoke in bed, smoking in bed doesn't cause fires which kill children. That conclusion is, of course, absurd."
    A criminal who fires 100 shots at a victim, 99 bullets miss, and only one hits and kills, has no defense in saying, 99% of the time, there was no cause-and-effect relationship!!!!! A 1% factor in killing is prosecuted every day on other matters. (In fact, the number of misses, even if the killer fired thousands of rounds at you before killing you, is in law no defense!! but on the contrary, shows the killer's intent, he kept trying to kill!) Here in SIDS, we see a 60% factor!!

    In the Vietnam War, the ratio was 1 bullet in 40,000 hit the enemy! 1/40,000, that's enough correlation, or causation, to keep shooting!

    The bottom line is, a cause is a cause because the result happens at all, even once.

    A cause is a cause when the result foreseeably happens at all. This is so, even though the cause statistically does not always do that particular result. Starting fires in bed, or spewing toxic chemicals around babies, foreseeably kills, even though the tragedy of resultant death does not always occur.

               A dictionary definition shows the action of third parties in causing babies to die in this way: "sudden infant death syndrome: the sudden and unexpected death of an apparently healthy infant, typically occurring between the ages of three weeks and five months, and not explained by careful postmortem studies; also called crib or cot death. Abbreviated SIDS." See Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, 26th Ed (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co, 1994), p 1641. Deaths from third party action (killing by means of toxic chemicals) should thus result in the use of the correct term "murder." (For the legal community's reaction to the facts about smoking as the predominant factor in SIDS, see 37 Am Jur Trials 1, "Crib Death Litigation.")

              Michigan law MCL § 750.27, MSA § 28.216, bans deleterious cigarettes thus the toxic emissions they emit that cause SIDS deaths. For more information, see the TCPG analysis of the law and the TCPG recitation of pertinent legal terminology. Involuntary foreseeable deaths constitute murder.

              TCPG urges you to help get the SIDS prevention law enforced, using the sample letter to Governor Jennifer Granholm and the sample letter to Attorney General Jennifer M. Granholm.

    Related Web Sites
    ABORTION
    AIDS
    ALCOHOLISM
    ALZHEIMER'S
    BIRTH DEFECTS
    CRIME 
    DIVORCE
    DRUGS
    GENOCIDE
    HEART DISEASE
    LUNG CANCER
    MENTAL DISORDER
    MURDER
    SEAT BELTS
    SUICIDE

    Others Views, By A Concerned Parent and Researcher
    SIDS Questionaire:
    Your Input Sincerely
    Invited If Applicable
    A. R. Parish, "Sudden infant death syndrome: A proposed discovery," 49 Medical Hypotheses (Aug 1997) 177-179

    For Return to Top of Page
    For TCPG's Home Page

    This site is sponsored as a public service by
    The Crime Prevention Group

    Email@TCPG

    Copyright © 1999 TCPG