A Legend Passes

With the bailout being the main news headlines and the only thing people are talking about, the loss of a Hollywood legend went a little under the radar. Paul Newman passed away on Friday, September 26 at the age of 83.

The reason I wanted to write about this is that he was a prominent actor who succumbed to lung cancer from many years of smoking (although, it has been reported he quit smoking over 30 years ago) Although he quit 30 years ago, the damage done was not repairable. According to a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, Dr. Len Horovitz, “Once lungs are damaged they don’t grow back, it’s like brain tissue — once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.” (published in an article on http://www.foxnew.com/)

Check out the photos to the right, Paul prior to diagnosis and Paul several months later…it’s a fast killer!


I do not walk around being an advocate all the time for not smoking, although my close friends who smoke may feel different. But I get on my friends and families back because it’s an avoidable death, preventable just by not doing it. I lived lung cancer for a year of my life and still am, it’s a horrible way to go and I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone. It’s not an easy death, it slowly eats at you, day by day, you can’t breathe, eat, walk and in the end you are on a morphine so strong you might think you are on Pluto. It’s devastating to watch someone die this way and it's a painful death.

Just think, in order to catch up to what tobacco kills each year the world’s largest cruise ship, Freedom of the Seas, which holds an estimated 3,600 passengers, would have to sink and all passengers aboard die every day for the next 4 years to catch up to 1 year of tobacco deaths in the world- now that is shocking!

Below are some quick facts from the American Lunch Association http://www.lungusa.org/ on lung cancer and smoking that may shock you:

• Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer in both men and women in the United States. In 1987, it surpassed breast cancer to become the leading cause of cancer deaths in women. Lung cancer causes more deaths than the next three most common cancers combined (colon, breast and prostate).
• Smoking accounts for 87% of lung cancer deaths.
• Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in the world. Tobacco kills more than HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. It is currently responsible for more than 5 million deaths each year, and will cause 8 million deaths each year by 2030. Up to half of people who smoke will eventually be killed by tobacco.
• The expected 5-year survival rate for all patients in whom lung cancer is diagnosed is 16%, compared to 64.1% for colon, 88.5% for breast and 99.9% for prostate cancer.
• About six out of 10 people with lung cancer die within one year of being diagnosed.

Now we know this is not healthy!