Posted on 03/07/2006 10:12:12 PM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist
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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