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.
I thought Kerry healed the sick?
Scan and post the death certificate stating cause of death as SHS.
So it couldn't have been old age, then, could it? Got to find some way to blame the smoke.
If she lived to almost 90, then I doubt it was so-called secondhand smoke that did her in. Can you prove she would have lived longer if she had never been exposed to it? That would be the only way you could prove an absolute link between the two.
The lack of clear logic on this subject is astounding. The technical term is "post hoc ergo propter hoc", meaning "after this therefore because of this". Assuming that the first event is directly causal of the second event, based on sequence.
You're so full of chit your shoes must squeek when you walk.
None of them believe the SHS bs.
that's an amazing graph
you certainly don't need a doctorate in medicine to see the correlation, which does not equal causality.
Please link me to where I said that forum participants were saying that smoking was good for you. If I said that, it was incorrect. What is accurate is that people say it's not really all that bad for you. The denial this forum regarding smoking is amazing.
Amen to that! Why must the media look for someone to blame? Oh, I forgot, they don't believe in God, so some person must be punished. Wait, it's Bush's fault!
Many many clinical nutritionist say when a vegetarian comes in to go through a detox program; they say it is next to impossible to detox them. If not impossible. That should tell vegetarians, this is NOT a healthy lifestyle.
This whole thread, with all the faux posturing about the death of someone none of us knew (and I, for one, couldn't care less about)is, IMO, in extremely bad taste, loaded with basic logical fallicies (post hoc, ergo propter hoc) and dividing us on a petty issue which is just how politicians like it.
Life's a crapshoot. Some of us make the long run and some of us run the 220.
Lung cancer is so deadly because it is so hard to cure or keep in remission; over time, most lung cancer patients die from complications, hypoxia and edema are two.
Massive metastasies invade nearby organs as well.
Yes I agree it COULD WITHIN THE REALM OF POSSIBILITY be also be due to global warming, nuclear fallout, flouride in the water, or contaminated moonshine from prohibition days, or some other phenomenon that initiated during this time period.
a hundred years ago ? Nice Try.
the average life span of males born in 1850 was 38 years
the average life span of males born in 1900 was 47 years.
Lung cancer is an old peoples cancer.
Fewer than 3% of all lung cancer cases are found in people under 45 years old.
Leaving this realm of anguish and pain may be a blessing in disguise. The one that will suffer is her young son.
You had a doctor tell you that with a straight face?
Call the funeral home and get them to make a copy of the death certificate and post it here; you'll make headlines.
force feed them White Castles, LOL
From a Google:
"Cancer is a class of diseases characterized by uncontrolled cell division and the ability of these cells to invade other tissues, either by direct growth into adjacent tissue (invasion) or by migration of cells to distant sites (metastasis). This unregulated growth is caused by a series of acquired or inherited mutations to DNA within cells, damaging genetic information that define the cell functions and removing normal control of cell division. ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer
Don't know much about epidemiology, eh?
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