SR0735 93RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY

SR0735 LRB093 23938 CSA 54035 r

SENATE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is an umbrella term used to describe airflow obstruction that is associated mainly with emphysema and chronic bronchitis; and

WHEREAS, COPD affects an estimated 24 million people and kills more than 112,000 people a year, but many people have not yet learned about this debilitating disease; and

WHEREAS, Of the top five diseases that kill Americans, including heart disease and cancer, all are on the decline except COPD; and

WHEREAS, Pulmonary experts predict that by the year 2020, COPD will be the third most deadly disease in the world; and

WHEREAS, COPD currently accounts for 1.5 million emergency room visits and 8 million physician office and hospital outpatient visits per year; the direct and indirect medical costs of COPD to the U.S. economy are estimated to be $32.1 billion per year; and

WHEREAS, While the Chicago area is acknowledged as the epicenter of the asthma epidemic, smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke and other air pollutants from smokestack industries, such as coal-fired power plants, are identified as primary irritants in the area; and

WHEREAS, Research has identified a hereditary factor to COPD that manifests in families that tend to develop the disease despite lack of exposure to environmental triggers; and

WHEREAS, Recently, the death rate of women with COPD has surpassed the death rate of men with COPD; women over the age of 40 are the fastest growing segment of the population developing this irreversible disease, due in large part to the equalization of opportunity for men and women to smoke over the past several generations; and

WHEREAS, There is no cure for COPD; medical treatments exist to address symptom relief and slow the progression of the disease, and there are promising research leads on medications that might be able to repair damage to lung tissue caused by COPD; and

WHEREAS, Until there is a cure, the best approaches to preventing COPD and its considerable health, societal, and mortality impacts lie with education, awareness and expanded delivery of detection and management protocols; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we hereby declare the month of November as COPD Awareness Month in Illinois.