Victims want funding to fight emphysema

To the editor:

I am one of the invisible people with emphysema. It means we have permanent damage to our lungs mostly caused by smoking. It is the fourth largest killer in the nation. It is one of the main reasons the government is fighting the tobacco companies and trying to keep children from smoking.

We are those who look pretty healthy but park in the handicapped places -- and you wonder why. It is simply because we are able to walk only a few feet before gasping for breath. Our lungs are so damaged that breathing is like trying to draw air through a pinpoint straw.

This disease is horrible. It eventually strips a human being of so much, including his independence, mobility, work, hobbies and comfort. And it finally takes lives too soon.

I belong to an organization called Efforts (Emphysema Foundation for Our Right to Survive) dedicated to promoting more research into lung diseases in order to find more effective medical management and a cure.

In these huge settlements between states and tobacco companies, one of the implied purposes has been to use some of the money to treat people who have emphysema. But the money is going everywhere except to help those who have this horrible disease.

We need your help. Speak out to the government for us,. Help keep whatever money is available directed specifically to the diseases smoking causes, not to build highways and reduce deficits.

WILLIAM QUILLIN

Wardell, Mo.