Folks, these are two lungs. Guess which is the smokers lung.
Smokers will tell you it has to be the one on the left. After all, it's a
big hoax that smoking kills.
Non smokers will recognize the lung on the right for what it is.
Posted on 03/07/2006 10:12:12 PM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist
Did years of singing in smoky nightclubs kill Dana Reeve, the widow of paralysed Superman actor Christopher Reeve?
She died yesterday of lung cancer even though she was not a smoker.
"Ten to 15 per cent of people who develop lung cancer are thought to be non-smokers. It was said that she had, in the course of being an entertainer, spent a lot of time in pubs, in nightclubs, in which there is a lot of cigarette smoke," said Dr James Mulshine from Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago.
Reeve, 44, won worldwide admiration for her devotion to her husband through his decade of near total paralysis.
He died 15 months ago and late last year she appeared at a gala for the Christopher Reeve Foundation and appeared to be responding well to treatment.
In the US more women die of lung cancer than breast cancer, and one in five American women diagnosed with the disease have never lit a cigarette.
"We know that 90 per cent of lung cancer is linked to direct smoking, the other 10 per cent is tied to occupational exposures, radon and secondhand smoke," said Pat McKone, a senior director of tobacco control with the American Lung Association.
"Dana Reeve was not a smoker, but she did spend many years of her singing career in smoke filled nightclubs."
Her death comes amid a worldwide debate on the danger of passive smoking and attempts to ban smoking from bars, clubs and eateries.
For instance today in New Jersey a coalition of bars, restaurants and bowling alley operators sued the state claiming its ban on smoking law is unconstitutional.
Meanwhile tributes have poured in for Reeve who was best known for standing by her husband through his courageous decade-long battle with paralysis caused by a fall from a horse.
"The brightest light has gone out," said comedian Robin Williams, one of the couple's closest friends. "We will forever celebrate her loving spirit."
Reeve's death came as a shock because she seemed to have the upper hand on the deadly disease since telling the world about her diagnosis last year, only two days after the death of American ABC TV newsman Peter Jennings.
"I'm beating the odds and defying every statistic the doctors can throw at me," Reeve said just a few months ago.
Reeve said she had learned from her late husband's struggle.
"I was married to a man who never gave up," she said.
Her death sparked an outpouring from the Reeves' many friends and admirers in Hollywood and Washington, where she was a vocal backer of stem cell research.
Former president Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton described Reeve as "a model of tenacity and grace".
"Chris was America's superhero, and Dana became our hero, too," added former presidential candidate Senator John Kerry, a close family friend.
Dana Reeve is survived by her 13-year-old son Will and two adult stepchildren, Matthew and Alexandra.
Dana Reeve, who lived in Pound Ridge, New York, had appeared in Broadway and Off-Broadway productions and on the TV shows Law & Order, Oz and All My Children.
She married Reeve in 1992 and abandoned her acting career to care for him after he was paralysed when he fell from a horse in 1995.
Christopher Reeve died on October 10, 2004.
In his autobiography, Still Me, Reeve wrote that he suggested early on to his wife, "Maybe we should let me go."
She responded, "I'll be with you for the long haul, no matter what. You're still you and I love you."
Those were "the words that saved my life", he wrote.
No, I've seen what he looks like. He apparently died many years ago.
Could it be that the cancer in her lungs was just a mass that settled in her lungs, as they do in other parts of the body? Is lung cancer only caused by smoking?
Nightclubs were notorious for foul air, especially cigarette smoke which sometimes could make your eyes water. I worked clubs for a while and after a worknight during my shower, the black residue would pour out of my nose and a mouth gargle would reveal more black residue in the back of my throat. My entire body and clothes would stink.
The club smoke density was substantially higher than the casual exposure you would get in say, the home environment. You breathed it in and your lungs acted like filter...you 'smoked' whether you liked it or not.
Sadly some of my musician friends have been afflicted with this particular cancer.
I can't agree with their politics but that sounds like a fair comment about her. She seemed to be a hell of a woman under trying circumstances. I admire her and feel for her son.
What killed Dana Reeve?
recessive gene?
What a bunch of bull crap!!!
On behalf of every fireman in the U.S. thanks for your opinion. Look, if you want to claim that smoke is good for us go ahead. I did not make the claim that the smoke produced by cigarettes is the same as smoke in your average house fire. What I did say was that smoke is the number one killer in fires and that smoke is not good for human lungs. If you wish to dispute that, be my guest.
Thanks. Sorry about your folks.
CANCER killed her; an inoperable cancer. Inoperable cancer nearly always kills.
Perhaps we should focus on the fact that there have been zilch, zero, nada advancements made in the last few decades for such cancers as lung, liver, pancreatic, stomach, and other typically inoperable cancers.
The pharma companies, oncologists, and researchers just LOVE to have you looking for any little thing in her background that might have "caused" her cancer, to cover up the fact that they are getting rich on chemo despite their abject failure to produce results. Why, they bank on the fact that your family, when faced with this, will cling to the 1% "hope" that they offer. The elixir peddlers of our time.
Get on with the dissecting of her life; hundreds of other innocents will die tomorrow having been shoved full of worthless chemo....but hey...the oncologists will relax this weekend at their lake homes; and the CEO of Merck might jet off to Monaco.
This is the only "business" that rewards abject failure; and it has for years. Cut them off at the knees (no insurance payments for futile treatments) and we might get some results.
There is a PSA on most radio talk shows from time to time warning of Radon gas and saying it's "the second leading cause of lung cancer."
Do they get that data from death certificates? I didn't know the cause of lung cancer was so easily determined. Some gov't agency is the sponsor of the Announcement.
Radon collects in basements of home built on hard rock formations. It must be vented from below as it is heavier than air, like chlorine and carbon dioxide.
hmmmmmmmmm to add a twist to this my grandfather smoked two packs a day for nearly 70 years and died at 92 from heart failure, not cancer. My grandmother did not smoke and she never came down with lung cancer.
Lots of Valley Fever in California.
LOL....................
Your comments regarding pharmaceutical houses and oncologists were unfortunate. There have been major advances in chemo pharmaceuticals over the last fifteen years. The inference that the cancers you listed have received short shrift so huge profits could be made by the pharmaceutical industry and oncologists reflects a complete lack of knowledge on the subject. Why would pharmaceutical houses develop phamaceuticals for any cancers, if profits were the sole motivator as you implied?
Oncologist treat real people with real family members. Many times their patients are relatives or people they have known for decades, friends and family members of friends. Your inference that these people would push off medications they knew wouldn't work, just so they could make a buck was simply untrue. And the charge flies in the face of medical professionals who are crushed when they have to explain to family members that there isn't much they can do, but try some things that have shown little success.
If it were your friend's mom, would you withhold a medication that might be somewhat helpful to her? If it would prolong her life for six months to a year, would you tell her daughter that you were sorry, but even though a certain med had been helpful in 15% of the cases where it was used, you weren't going to waste the money on her mom?
The real profits today are reaped on medications that are showing great success. They will be used in the vast majority of cases, and those profits will help to pay for research on new medications.
It is preposterous to claim that the only reason the pharmacueutical industry hasn't made more progress, is because we haven't cut off their funding, yet this is precisely the claim you sought to make.
Key words: "is linked to". This means that it is one hell of a lot easier to blame the smokes than to do the necessary research to find out whether these people had other or even common carcinogenic exposures.
Instead of spending money on a cure, they piss it away on useless 'studies' promoting the reiteration of the same tedious mantra.
Eliminate cigarettes and there will still be lung cancer. Then what? "I heard he had seen a tobacco ad in an old magazine."?
There are a few other aspect of this that I did not mention.
The profit margins on chemo medications are very slim. The costs are high. Many insurance plan payments as well as state and federal government payments have been cut to the bone.
Some oncologists do carry their own stocks of medications, but many times it's the hospital that gets stuck providing the chemos the physician has ordered. In those cases, the oncologist doesn't make a dime off the chemo.
Along with chemo medications, there are also medications that help to support the patient. Antiemetics and white cell generating mediations are a major additional cost.
Hospitals are not getting rich off billing for these mediations. All it takes is a few indigent patients and months worth of small profit margins can be eaten up by chemo administration and support services.
Seems the money would be better spent on a cure for (lung) cancer than bitching about cigarettes, if this is the case. Tobacco or no, it can kill you.
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