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Show fesinfe nm in ft totals, in the home, on fighways and in '"places, are a greater i eal American lives than IubIiciied potential ! epidemic that the ;ral Wvernment now is 8 steps to combat, the president of the National Safety Council told safety and civic leaders Thursday at the annual meeting of the Utah Safety Council. "IN THE next 25 years, four times as many Americans will be killed if accident levels remain unchanged as died in the great influenza epidemic of 1918 - 1919," Council President Vincent Tofany said. "There is more to the comparison com-parison than a difference in the magnitude of loss threatened," threa-tened," he added. "The flu epidemic is only a possibility. The accident epidemic is a certainty." TOFANY SAID that, at their present rate, accidents would claim the lives of 17,000 Utah residents in the next quarter-century. quarter-century. "By all means, let us do what must be done to protect our people from a possible influenza outbreak," Tofany said, "but in doing so, let us do proportionately more to resist the larger and more certain threat of accidents." TOFANY CALLED for a general mobilization of resources from state and local government, educational organizations, or-ganizations, professional organizations or-ganizations and other private sector groups to combat the accident menace. He stressed that only a broadly-based, multi-faceted, voluntary safety movement could mobilize the forces needed to stem the accident tide in homes, workplaces, recreational activities and on the job. TOFANY SAID that the coordination of such a movement would have to be handled regionally by state and local safety councils, such as the Utah Safety Council, and nationally by the National Safety Council. "You have made a good beginning here in Utah," he said. "You have united people with many concerns in the Utah Safety Council. Many different contributions of talent, energy and money have given your program a breadth that promises well for the future." TOFANY ADDED, however, how-ever, that present safety efforts were "only the beginning" begin-ning" in a war against accidents ac-cidents that threaten to kill more than two and one-half million persons, inflict disabling injuries on more Americans than now are alive and deal a crushing blow of $1 trillion in accident costs to the nation's economy in the next quarter century. "Improvement will take all of the best efforts that can be mobilized. It will take our best brainpower, our highest levels of energy and our generous deployment of our material resources," he said. |