It takes a different kind of person to exploit an impending death to spew nonsense. It would be as easy to prove that he did not get the illness from second hand smoke as from, say, eating egg-plant.
And there is another dimension here.
Would he be any less dead had he died while rock climbing? or saving his fellow-scientists by shielding them from an accidental chain reaction during the development of the A-bomb?
People make choices which we should respect, and we all should be conscious of not exploting anyone's death to satisfy our personal selfishness; the need to be the drama queen.
I'll leave it at that and wait for the right time and the right thread to comment further.
Complete agreement with your post #199