December 18th, 2012:

http://www.nicotinevictims.com/lung_cancer.htm

Read actual excerpts from closing argument by a nicotine attorney in a lung cancer case.

(C125)

How many tears will a child cry

When they’re told their dad will die

When their dad goes into eternity

For the cancer the doctor did not see

The emotions which are torn apart

And all the pain on the families heart

A precious life just slipping away

How can one be happy and gay

Knowing there’s nothing one can do

Feelings of sorrow, feelings so blue

For now they’ll cherish every living day

Tell him all the things they need to say

Truly a dad who really loved and cared

A lifelong memory forever shared.

Angela B. – daughter of victim who is in last stages of terminal lung cancer.

(C2004)

My brothers, sisters and I buried my father on St Patrick’s Day. We lost him to Lung cancer. He was 73 and very active until the cancer. He was playing volleyball 2 years ago with men in the 30-40’s. He was diagnosed in June. It was a shock because he had not smoked in about 20-25years. But he lived with my mom who was a heavy smoker and she died of lung cancer in 1990. So actually her smoking killed my father also.

This disease has devastated my family. We are all educated, family oriented people. I keep thinking there must be something that can be done. I am 32 years old and I have no parents because of smoking. MF

(C126)

I lost my father to a heart attack caused by smoking (age 69), and my
mother at age 53 to due to a lung aneurism caused by smoking. She went
back to smoking after abstaining for 2 years after the lung surgery that
removed her entire left lung and part of her right lung. She had a
tracheotomy in order to breath. I had to suction copious amounts of goop
out of her lungs several times a day. As a teenager I found out that a
smoker can get their fix through the trach tube, and I was furious she
would continue to smoke knowing this would leave her children orphans.

My brother married later in life and adopted 13 children. He died at
43 from lung cancer that metastasized to his stomach ( a 3 pack a day
smoker, first cigarette at age 12). His wife died at age 40 a year later
from lung cancer (2 pack a day smoker). My father-in-law and his wife
both died from cancer of the brain that began in their lungs. It was a
very painful thing for them to endure. Since she worked for a cigarette
manufacturer, getting cigarettes was easy and packs were available free
if they wanted them, and they did want them. DJH

(C143)

My brother has just died of lung cancer. He was only 54, and yes, he was a smoker. He has died a month after being diagnosed with cancer. We are devastated and terribly angry. When he was very young, working in a factory in Milan, Italy, he started to smoke because he was lonely, the job was alienating and repetitive, but nobody and I mean, nobody ever told him of the danger of smoking.. Warnings on cigarettes packets were introduced only very recently, certainly I am right in thinking that he has been killed…

Please help me in finding someone to blame, or at least in doing something to stop other young people from dying of nicotine poisoning. Do we only care to make huge profits? Does a life mean nothing to those who kill people by selling them cigarettes?

Regards

Maria

(C102)Dear NV,

In April of last year my mother passed away of lung cancer caused by her addiction to cigarettes. My father has just recently lost 3 toes to Buerger’s Disease, caused by nicotine. My father has since quit smoking but he will go on the rest of his life with a limp and these are not the first digits he has lost to an addiction he just couldn’t kick.

In ’85 and in ’90 he lost the tips of a total of three fingers. My mother smoked right up until the day she died. No matter how hard she tried she could not put down her lifeline, which is what the cigarettes became until she finally lost her life. Now my brother and I have watched these two people that we love dearly go through these tragedies with no way to help.

We are now trying to put ourselves through college because the medical bills are so high that Daddy can barely make the payments no matter how hard he tries. He loves us dearly but there is just so much he can do. I am just wondering if there is anything we could do. Had Mama lived and worked until retirement then maybe we wouldn’t be as stretched as we are now. I know this explanation is probably too long and for that I apologize. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,K. P.

(C108)
I live in the State of New York. My father died of lung cancer in March. Unfortunately, he died a very debilitating death and gasped for air in the last months of his life. The doctors told us that anyone could get lung cancer, but the type of lung cancer that my father had could only be contracted by a smoker. My father smoked for almost 40 years but had quit in the last years of his life. Once again, thank you. R. B.

(C121)Hello,

I am a thirty-year-old woman who had smoked for 15 years and surrendered March 31, 1998. I was told that I have cervical dysphasia, which could very well lead to cancer. I had a biopsy and am to return to the doctor in September for another Pap Smear and possible biopsy to decide whether or not they want to do surgery.

I didn’t think at the age of fifteen that smoking was a bad thing. I thought it was cool, it made me appear grown up. I quickly became addicted to them without even realizing it. I am trying to explain addiction to my stepson who at the age of twelve is now smoking. I told him to hold his breath for as long as he can, which he did and then he said, “I need to breathe”. That is what addiction is like, you need to smoke. Your body craves it, your mind makes you think you will die without one when the truth is… you will die with them.

If you are a smoker, there is a time when it is too late, please break through your denial that cigarettes won’t kill you and find a way that works for you to let them go. It is possible. You weren’t born a smoker, you don’t have to die one. J. S.

Download PDF : Fact_15years-fnl-081003_0

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/24/smoking-asthma-children-health/print

Thousands more suffer chest infections and ear problems because of exposure to smoke from parents’ cigarettes

Tens of thousands of children in the UK every year get asthma, chest infections and ear problems because they are exposed to smoke from their parents’ cigarettes, doctors reveal today.

Secondhand smoke causes 15,400 children between three and 16 to develop asthma, gives 20,500 two or under a chest infection and 121,400 under-16s an infected middle ear, a report from the Royal College of Physicians warns. Another 600 under-16s get meningitis, 7,200 babies start wheezing and 40 children die of sudden infant death syndrome owing to passive smoking, the study says.

In total 165,000 children get such conditions, 9,500 need hospital treatment and 25,000 under-16s start smoking as a result of having one or more parents who smokes, while GPs undertake 303,900 consultations annually involving childhood illness linked to parental smoking, it adds.

Young people’s health suffers so badly from adults smoking near them or living in a home where people light up that smoking in outdoor areas where children gather should be outlawed, the report from the RCP’s tobacco advisory group concludes.

There was no point in proposing a ban on smoking in homes because that would be “unenforceable”, said Prof John Britton, the group’s chairman. But government action and changes in public behaviour were needed to protect the two million children being brought up in homes where smoking occurs, he added.

Some parents mistakenly believe that it is not harmful to smoke if they do it with a window open or after their children are asleep, Britton said. A child’s exposure to passive smoke is about three times higher than a peer in a non-smoking family if the father smokes but is raised by more than six times if the mother does and by almost nine-fold if both parents light up, the report found.

The legislation banning smoking in public places that came into force in England in mid-2007 should be extended to tackle smoking in places popular with children, such as play areas and swimming pools, said Richard Ashcroft, a co-author of the report and professor of bio-ethics at Queen Mary, University of London.

The leaders of many of the medical royal colleges, which represent specialist groups of doctors, backed the proposals. Prof Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said the figures for childhood illness linked to passive smoking were horrifying. “These smokers are, in effect, forcing children to breathe what is essentially poisonous air,” he said.

The chief medical officer for England, Prof Sir Liam Donaldson, said the report’s recommendations “align very well with the government’s 10-year vision for tobacco control set out in its new strategy for England”. Ministers will decide whether to extend the scope of the public smoking ban when it is reviewed later this year.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “Children are being exposed to far less secondhand smoke as a result of smoke-free legislation. Parents have a responsibility to protect their children by stopping smoking around them in enclosed spaces like their cars and in their homes.”, she added.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/12/17/report-smoking-takes-5-hours-off-life-expectancy-per-day

A new report attempts to compare the relative effects of habits on life expectancy

By Jason Koebler

December 17, 2012 RSS Feed Print

Every so often, a scientific report will come out that warns of the life-shortening dangers of smoking, eating red meat, sitting too long, or of drinking too much alcohol. But until now, no researchers have tried to quantify the day-to-day hazards of bad habits.

British statistician David Spiegelhalter, in a report published Monday in British Medical Journal, attempts to quantify which habits have a greater impact on life expectancy: Is drinking heavily worse than living a sedentary lifestyle?

To do this, he created a unit of measure called a “microlife,” which corresponds to 30 minutes of life expectancy. Using other studies, he determined that for each day of heavy smoking, a person could be shaving about five hours off his life; someone who watches TV for two hours a day loses about 30 minutes for each day they take part in that activity.

“I’m taking lifelong habits and looking at how they affect people on average, convert it to a daily rate,” Spiegelhalter says. “The whole idea is to make a comparison about healthy activities and bad activities. Crudely, drinking two cups of coffee will cancel out eating a burger.”

Spiegelhalter says when people hear about life expectancy studies, they assume they’ll lose a couple years off the end of their lives. Instead, he says, they should consider it as “aging faster” — a smoker could be hurtling faster towards lung cancer, for instance, than a nonsmoker.

“If you’re a smoker, it’s like you’re moving at your death as if you were living 29 hours a day, it’s accelerated aging,” he says. “It’s a bit of a metaphor — you’re getting older quicker rather than living just a bit less.”

Here’s how different habits stack up, according to Spiegelhalter (estimates are based on various life expectancy studies and hours gained or lost are per day of exposure)

Smoking (15-24 cigarettes per day): Minus -five hours