an asthmatic dying of 'exposure to second hand smoke' is a SHAME.

exposing yourself to a KNOWN IRRITANT, and that's what second hand smoke is, no more, no less, is STUPID if you KNOW YOU ARE AN ASTHMATIC.

now, you have SEVERAL CHOICES in what to do next.

1. open a non-smoking bar. money should be easy to get seeing as since EVERYONE IN MICHIGAN thinks that non-smoking bars are a good idea except the bar owners who actually risk their money.

2. open your own venue to play, make it non-smoking, and only play there. you could probably rent a high school auditorium for a couple of hundred bucks a night, not bad for a 'big time' musician, and you can control who smokes and when.

3. you can make the committment to better health (yours) and drop the committment to taking away rights (mine).

if you need more suggestions, just ask.

"Suspected to", "believed to". And still, no scientific proof. Forget scientific consensus (the antithesis of the scientific method), as that doesn't mean a damn' thing.

If you don't like the smell of smoke (and I don't blame you, it stinks), don't go to the fucking bar. What are you? Stupid? Some form of congenital idiot? Or do you just want everything your way? What makes *you* so fucking special? Got asthma? Don't work where there's smoke (and yes, there *is* a fucking choice). Don't walk downtown where you breathe the diesel fumes. Carry your inhaler, you idiot. Make choices. Be an individual.

Go to a non-smoking bar, where you can pick up hot-looking "member-of-sex-you-find-attractive" after drinking metabolic poisons and eating additive-loaded, pre-packaged-excuses-for-food, take the hottie home, screw them and hope to whichever deity you pray to that you don't catch some STD. And in the morning, praise-be, you won't smell of smoke. Nope. Stale alcohol, body odor, dried "dressing du jour", but not smoke. Whoop-de-fucking-do.

*Wake up*, you morons. Start taking responsibility for your lives. If you don't like something, *don't do it*. Stop whining like a herd of pre-pubescent teenagers, and have an original thought. Although I doubt one in fifty of you is capable of even that now.

smokers will say anything to make themselves sound right. about the girl above who died-it is hard finding a good job especially being a waitress-and if there are any smoke free restaurants i bet they are fully staffed. for B that said: "i grew up with friends and we all smoked and so did our parents and none of us died". first of all-you don't know how they died, they could have had a heart attack-which was caused by blocked arteries, which was caused by second hand smoke! in your day-that was then...today thousands of people are dying each year. The media has nothing to do with how people feel...the truth is what makes people speak out against smoking. i am writing an argumentative paper for an english class, and after doing a lot of research I cannot believe I smoked when i turned 18. i did socially when i went out to a bar(which is now smoke free!) and i just can't beleive i smoked at all. it is very hard to find a restaurant to eat at that is smoke free. there are only about 3 or 4 good places to eat at that are smoke free in my city. i think it would help businesses-though I hate tourists, they would bring more money to our city and restaurant owners would make a lot more money. me aving a 2 year old son now-i will never smoke again, and hope he doesn't grow up to be like the little punks out here that are smoknig when they are 13 and 14.
i am right...smokers are wrong : )
Sarah-virginia Beach

Saying this is the first death caused by secondhand smoke is in itself ridiculous. Anti-smoking groups say 3000 people die each year from second hand smoke yet this is the first actually attributed to it.

One of two logical options are possible. Either this really is the first death from second hand smoke or this isn't the first death. If it is the first death, then one death after 200 years of smoking is hardly a public health concern. If it isn't the first death then anti-smoking lobbyists are trying to scare people into accepting the stripping of freedoms by holding up one particular case and saying this is you... when in reality it isn't. Its simply bad statistics and bad science. Any scientist or statistician will tell you one person out of 300 million is an anomoly and not the rule.

In my opinion (and this is just my opinion, not fact) second hand smoke, while it does have negative side effects, is no different from anything else we do. Risk is a part of life. I refuse to live in fear of every little thing that can go wrong. And make no mistake, it is fear that anti-smoking, anti-terrorist, anti-abortion, anti-alcohol, all the anti-something groups are using. If the statistics were hard fact, smoking would be banned by now, same as any other illicit drugs. That being said I do believe that second hand smoke can be detrimental to particular demographs. I don't smoke around children or the elderly (unless they're smoking themselves). Out of courtesy and not concern for public health, I don't smoke in restaurants where people are enjoying a meal. I find those reasonable concessions to make.

For me the real problem is choice. It's something that is being taken away from us with all these laws. I ask, in all seriousness, why not give the business owner this choice? Some places will choose to ban smoking, some won't. Smokers will congregate to the places they can smoke while the non-smokers will go to the smoke-free environments. To me this seems like a reasonable compromise over an issue that has caused so much bad blood between both sides.

Is it really too much to ask for people to smoke outside in order to avoid tragedies like the one mentioned in this story. Is the convenience of not having to get up and go outside every couple of hours really worth putting lives at risk. I don't think so. Think about it for a minute.

Well you probably say I shouldn’t be playing in a Bar but unfortunately I have to because I love music and I didn’t make it to the big times. This is my story. I ‘m a singer and musician I’m also asthmatic and I’m at a point where I have to give up playing in bars in Michigan because I been having asthma attack and I’ve done my research every time I’m at bars that allows smoking I have an attack now I love playing music for people and people say they love what I do but the problem is when I leave I’m sick and when they leave there entertain I’m sick right now because I play at a bar in Michigan the other night the Bar was so filled with smoke I had to leave all of my equipment out side and the clothes I had on as well and I have to take breathing treatments right now .I’m also on the computer looking for ways to not have to give up my profession .So I was searching for something to cover my face or whatever works and I seen this forum .All I’m saying is if this was a smoke free State the singers and musician who don’t smoke could be around a little longer I ‘m very health focus because I was born with asthma and it is so unfair to me as a person who had no choice if I wanted asthma or not to have to lose my extra income because people want to smoke I’m not saying ban cigarettes I’m say please don’t make me smoke them….
Thank”s

Well you probably say I shouldn’t be playing in a Bar but unfortunately I have to because I love music and I didn’t make it to the big times. This is my story. I ‘m a singer and musician I’m also asthmatic and I’m at a point where I have to give up playing in bars in Michigan because I been having asthma attack and I’ve done my research every time I’m at bars that allows smoking I have an attack now I love playing music for people and people say they love what I do but the problem is when I leave I’m sick and when they leave there entertain I’m sick right now because I play at a bar in Michigan the other night the Bar was so filled with smoke I had to leave all of my equipment out side and the clothes I had on as well and I have to take breathing treatments right now .I’m also on the computer looking for ways to not have to give up my profession .So I was searching for something to cover my face or whatever works and I seen this forum .All I’m saying is if this was a smoke free State the singers and musician who don’t smoke could be around a little longer I ‘m very health focus because I was born with asthma and it is so unfair to me as a person who had no choice if I wanted asthma or not to have to lose my extra income because people want to smoke I’m not saying ban cigarettes I’m say please don’t make me smoke them….
Thank”s

I'd like to add this to the fray: I'm 50 years old. While I was growing up in the 60's my parents smoked as did every one of their friends. They smoked in the house, in the car, at their work, in restaurants....everywhere. And you know what? Not ONE of us kids died from it. In fact, most of us are STILL alive and if not, the deaths had nothing to do with second hand smoke.

There are 79 million baby boomers like me. I'd bet most of us grew up in smoking households. I would think that of any demographic - we'd be perfect for a study. According to the non-smoking lobby, we should all be dead by now having been exposed to so much second-hand smoke.

God...I wish people would just stop and think every now and then instead of blindly believing everything the media wants to shove down our throats.

B

The death of this girl was tragic, but what's almost worse is the way it is simply being abused by the antismoking lobby for their own ends. She had asthma, and asthma has many different sorts of "triggers" for different people. It's unlikely that smoke was a trigger for her since she was regularly working in a bar that would get much smokier in the course of an evening than it was at that early point (remember, the DJ was still "setting up") and she said nothing about smoke.

The smoke connection is purely a concoction by antismoking extremists seeking to take advantage of her unfortunate and sad death. It's just a small variation on the abusive game they play with children, using them as weapons against their parents. The idea is to present a puppy dog in the hope that someone will kick it and make themselves look bad.

She had an asthma attack and it happened by pure chance that it occurred while she was at work in a bar. It could just as easily have happened out on a bar patio in the winter (at which point a "lack of patio heaters" could have been blamed), as she was parking her car in a parking garage (at which point the anti-car folks could claim she was killed by automobile fumes), or after she'd jogged (asthma attacks ARE often brought on by exercise you know).

Her death is simply being exploited, much to the harm and detriment of the people she worked with who were probably her friends, and much to the potential advantage of lawyers who will seek to cash in either on her death or on similar ones that occur in ANY situation where smoking is allowed... regardless of exposure or whether the victim was a quiet smoker him/herself. Antismokiing lobbyists have been pushing the concept of fear at employers for a long time: "Your employees will SUE you when they get sick from ETS!" and this is just another chip in the game to them. They care nothing for the people involved.

Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
Mid-Atlantic Director, Citizens Freedom Alliance, Inc.
Director, Pennsylvania Smokers' Action Network (PASAN)

A woman in her late teens died from an acute asthma attack triggered by secondhand cigarette smoke shortly after arriving at her job as a waitress in a bar in Michigan, researchers reported on Friday.

Okay, here's your first clue--if you have asthma, a bar is probably not a good workplace for you.
And, uh, isn't it illegal for underage kids to work in an environment where alcohol is served?

They said it was the first reported case of an immediate death caused by secondhand smoke.

“She didn’t have any other possible known causes of death,” said Dr. Kenneth Rosenman, a Michigan State University professor who oversees three state public health surveillance systems.

No other causes but the ASTHMA.

Cigarette smoke is known to trigger acute asthma attacks.

THEN WHY WORK IN A BAR WHERE SMOKING IS ALLOWED?

“We know that particulate levels from secondhand cigarette smoke in bars like this reach sufficient levels to set off an asthma attack,” Rosenman said.

THEN WHY WORK IN A BAR WHERE SMOKING IS ALLOWED? Whose fault is that? The smokers? The bar? The state? Uh, no, it's the fault of the dead chick.

He said the woman was a student who had a job at a fast-food restaurant, and worked a second job as a waitress at the bar. “She was perfectly fine when she went to work,” Rosenman said in a telephone interview.

PERFECTLY FINE EXCEPT FOR THE ASTHMA...and the probably obesity she suffered at the hands of all the evil fast food she most likely ate. She probably absorbed a lot of second-hand lipids at her other job.

“After about 15 minutes, she had an acute asthma attack and collapsed on the floor. The autopsy clearly indicates she died from asthma,” said Rosenman,

Then why is PMSNBC and Reuters--under the thin guise of some imaginary "researchers" trying to blame this woman's death on second-hand smoke?

Rosenman said the woman had asthma since age 2. Her asthma was poorly controlled. She had made four visits to her doctor in the year before her death for flare-ups, and had been treated in a hospital emergency department two to three times that year.

So that's 6 to 7 visits--she made so many they actually lost count--in one year...for asthma, not second-hand smoke syndrome.

SO WHY DOES THE HEADLINE OF THIS ARTICLE SCREAM: AHHHHHHH, SECOND-HAND SMOKE WILL KILL YA, I SEZ.

Although she had prescriptions for an assortment of drugs to prevent and treat asthma attacks, she was reported to only use them when she was having breathing difficulty.

No way, it wasn't patient negligence--it was second-hand smoke...some "researchers" said so!

On the evening of her death, she had no inhaler with her. When she became sick, she told the bar manager she needed to go to the hospital, then collapsed on the dance floor.

See, other people were dancing in this awful haze of second-hand smoke--and presumably raising their heart rates in the process--AND THEY AREN'T DEAD.

Rosenman, who wrote about the case in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, said 24 U.S. states prohibit smoking in public places such as bars. A number of other states, including Michigan, are considering it.

Yep, by God, let's curtail the rights of people who want to smoke because some dolt who can't take their own fucking medicine and shouldn't be working in such an environment anyway, dies as a result.

This is as intelligent as banning school buses because one school bus driver who was a well-known drunk and had been arrested 6 to 7 times last year for drunk driving, drove a bunch of kids off a cliff, while drunk.

He said a smoking ban could prevent future deaths.

No, motherfucker, banning asthmatics from smoky bars would though.

“There are a lot of statistics out there about secondhand smoke. Here is a human face.

Except she's not a human face. Because, you know, we can't see her in the article and um, she isn't named. She's probably not even real.

She died acutely. It is a tragic death,” Rosenman said.

Every death is a tragedy, every million deaths is a statistic...sorry, went all Stalin on ya there.

No, she died because she was asthmatic, didn't medicate, didn't bring her inhalers and shouldn't have been working in a smoke-filled bar, you lying sack of fucking dogshit with an agenda.

In another article, Rosenman says:

“As a consumer, I don’t have to go into that bar,” he said.

And you know, it's nice to have that CHOICE, isn't it?

“But is it a safe environment for the employees?

It is if you don't have acute, terminal-stage asthma, apparently.

We have federal laws that say employers have to provide a safe and healthy workplace. This was clearly not a safe and healthy workplace for this employee.

Well, then she SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN THERE THEN! And just because one broad is so stupid she ends up dead, does that mean THE STATE has to curtail the rights of millions?

I don't recall seeing the part where this broad was press-ganged and forced into servitude. Did she or did she not willingly apply to this job, get this job and then continue to show up for this job? And at any time did she tell the owners she had some sort of OBVIOUS FUCKING DISABILITY THAT MIGHT REQUIRE 6 OR 7 VISITS TO THE ER? I doubt it.

“This death dramatizes the need to enact legal protections for workers in the hospitality industry from secondhand smoke.”

Drama--that's the first true thing he has said in the article.

How about making bar employees wear a filter or some other sort of gas mask/breathing apparatus, dipshit? Or maybe we could just hire illegal immigrants to do it, since they aren't American citizens and don't have to follow federal law in any other regard.

In the United States, 23 states have already banned smoking in restaurants and bars.

And those bars suck. They are no fun. They might as well ban drinking in those bars, too. If I was still a drinker, I wouldn't go to those bars--except, SOON, I'LL HAVE NO CHOICE ANYWHERE! Whoops! So much for freedom.

The study was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Great, our taxpayers money is so well-spent.

Also notice something--no name on the deceased girl, no name on the bar, no name on the bar owner, no town where this bar is located, no nothing. Might not even be real.

While I'm not a huge fan of second-hand smoke - not for particularly pressing health or moral reasons, although I could easily make such arguments, but because I find the odour unpleasant - I'd have to agree with you about this case. The anti-smoking agenda should *not* overshadow careful consideration of all the facts of the matter.

I am from Cincinnati, Ohio and moved up here to Lansing about 3 years ago. I love going home and going out to a bar or a club and being able to breathe. I also enjoy not smelling bad after I leave the bar.

When I go out here in Michigan, I can't breathe AFTER I enter the bar. And I have my asthma under control. I take my prescribe asthma medication and still suffer at the bars.

The fact that this girl only worked at this bar FURTHER proves this study. When you don't take your asthma medication as prescribed and start having breathing problems that are caused by a trigger such as allergies (SMOKE) or infections it's a hard hill to climb back up to normal lung function. This girl struggled with her asthma all the time before working in the bar, but the NEW added trigger of the second-hand smoke was the final nail in her literal coffin. I am willing to guarentee you that if this young lady would have not been employed at this bar she would have gone through the same cycle of asthmatic troubles year after year ALIVE until she either started religiously taking her medication or was harmed by a different asthma trigger.

Smoke can trigger an asthma attack. PERIOD. And I understand she was not properly taking her medication and was having difficulties before entering the bar. But if someone was on fire would you throw gasoline on them? Smoke didn't start that fire...it just made it worse. Sure the smoke in the bar didn't cause her asthma but as an asthmatic the simple truth is it didn't help her asthma.

We all know smokers have their rights, but guess what... so do I. I didn't choose to have asthma. But I do choose not to smoke because of my asthma. And I have the right to go to the bar just as much as the next person. And I don't think I should have to take an extra hit off my inhaler (which is intended for emergency use) because someone else was so self-conscience at one time in their life to "fit in" and "be cool" that they started smoking and now can't stop even for one evening. And it's not like you don't even have to not smoke! Just do the polite thing and go outside. I don't go up to you and rip a stinking fart in your face, so don't put your gross HEALTH HARMING smoke in mine. But that's the thing about you Michigan folk, you are so far distanced from the South and their manners and morals that you don't even consider the fact that smoking indoors is rude, let alone unhealthy.

My challenge to the nay-sayers is this:
Go on a road trip to one of the many states who have outlawed smoke in bars. Have a nice night, have a couple drinks and whine about having to go outside and freeze while you take a smoke break... and at the end of the night you will still appreciate the fact that your eyes don't burn, your clothes smell like you and that you aren't coughing.

We all have seen the effects of long-term second-hand smoke, but it's about time that people can see what I feel like everytime I go out to a Michgan bar. It's just a shame someone had to lose their life to prove a point like this.

Are you also aware that no measure of tobacco smoke PMs were made at the time of her death?

Were you aware that the girl had only worked in this place for three months -- part time? She had been asthmatic since she was 2, and had not brought her inhaler with her, even though she was having difficulty a scant 15 minutes prior to her entering this bar.
So, the FACT is that the "case" doesn't link the woman's death to ETS, the people with the anti-smoking agenda do.

It's amazing how many smokers still seem to think that their smoke has no effect on anyone else. Actually some even seem to think that it doesn't even make the smoker themself ill. Maybe something like this story will bring them to their senses. I certainly hope so anyway.

There've been many other cases suspected to be caused by long term exposure to secondhand smoke. What reason is there to allow smoking in any restaurant? The negative health effects are well known. Even some of the tobacco companies are admitting that heart disease, respiratory problems and even lung cancer are the consequences of inhaling passive tobacco smoke. Staff who work in smoke filled environments are at high risk from working in these unsafe environments.