SAVE.

COMMENT BY PATTON: When Palo Alto officials and others consider the replacement of ionization devices with real smoke detectors, it seems to me that the full story regarding the smoke detector fraud is seldom realized. The reality is that this fraud is probably the deadliest fraud ever pulled off within the United States. It would be difficult to find any criminal act over the past hundred years that equates to what has been committed by organizations within the fire regulatory system; especially including the NFPA, UL and the smoke detector manufactures. This was not a case of merely clever manipulation of a code to get a leg up on competitors. This was a conspiracy of clever organization committing heinous crimes that resulted in probably 30,000 children being burned to death and 150,000 children being horribly injured, maimed and mutilated. These thousands of injured children spent long and painful weeks and even months in hospitals and many will carry the scars, both mental and physical for the rest of their lives. Those who are part of the fire safety establishment are often reluctant to believe the worst because, for decades the NFPA and UL have been considered the protectors of lives and especially protectors of children. So, being conditioned for years to consider the NFPA/UL team to be honest and helpful it is difficult to believe they would actually do these terrible things by intent. But I am a believer in a conclusion reached many years ago which is especially valid today. It is:

POWER TENDS TO CORRUPT AND ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY. (Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, April 5, 1887) Both the NFPA and UL were founded prior to the 1900s and had more than a hundred years to develop a strategy to profit from fire while deceiving the public. When one examines the workings of these two organizations the truth is they have wonderful PR strategies to influence fire officials and others while; but within closed doors they have joined forces with multibillion dollar businesses to open the marketplace to those who ally themselves with the NFPA/UL regulators. Behind the closed doors, the fire marketplace is regulated by codes (that become laws) actually written mainly by those who profit from fire. The UL certifications are a payoff for being allowed to sell within the controlled marketplace. UL is the toll station one must pass through to sell at often exorbitant prices. Both UL and the NFPA have joined forces with those who will deliberately defraud the public and also put the consumer at risk with inadequate and even fraudulent products. Fire sprinkler systems of extremely stupid design, which are price controlled at up to ten times excessively, is one example. Dishonest fire ratings that are sold with hour, 1 hour and 2 hour ratings, but often fail within ten minutes, is another. The fire control ratings of the fire extinguishers are phony. High priced hose and hose cabinets that are useless for the non professional firefighter is another. Of course, a phony smoke detector named a smoke detector is a key and deadly one. The market controlled by the NFPA/UL team is into the trillions of dollars. Construction and building features are but a piece of the market that is opened to the profiteers via the regulators. I enclose a report explaining how UL knowingly and deliberately falsified fire tests and helped cover up the performance lies manufactures (of the so-called smoke detector). Note that the operation was amazingly clever, but corrupt and deadly. Those who will profit by burning children are no friends of society.

R. M. Patton