Families of employees of an Aluminum Smelter in Quebec have received a ruling in their favour and will likely receive money to compensate for the loss of their loved one, which it's thought was caused by exposure dangerous carcinogens in the workplace. Although the 10 workers were smokers, it's believed that their deaths were ultimately a result of their working conditions.

It's not specified exactly how much the families will receive, but it's expected to be 'thousands of dollars.' That seems a bit cheap when you consider that it's compensation for someone's life, don't you think?

The city I live in recently banned smoking. I, along with many other people, breathed a huge sigh of relief when the ban was implemented (literally!) because it sometimes seemed downright impossible to have a social life in a city where smoking was allowed in almost all restaurants and bars. I recall an argument I had with someone who was upset because not being allowed to smoke in a public place was unconstitutional -- it was his right to smoke wherever he pleased and if people don't like it, they shouldn't go out. Ever.

What about the right to live and to work in an environment where you're not putting yourself in grave danger? Everyone has the right to a safe work environment, including bar and restaurant staff. And make no mistake--second hand smoke is toxic. According to this report, bar and restaurant workers showed an alarming amount of carcinogenic material in their urine after being exposed to smoke for only minutes.

So I say, if you want to smoke, smoke. Just don't poison everyone else while you're at it. Your thoughts?

It's scary but true: Chemicals are all around us, in the air we breath, the things we eat and drink and even our homes. According to this article, alarming levels of harmful chemicals are being found in the bodies of average Canadians of all ages ... from newborns to the elderly. We don't think about these kinds of statistics -- and we don't want to -- but we're going to have to if we want to be the healthiest we can.

The Canadian group Prevent Cancer Now has made it their mission to help reduce the amount of harmful substances, some of them carcinogens, that are lurking in our environment. They're striving to make changes in all levels of the Canadian population -- from the individual right up to the government and big corporations.

It's about time! What do you think?

The American Cancer Society (ACS) of Ohio has filed a lawsuit challenging the state's workplace smoking ban. The ban exempts some military veterans' halls and other private clubs -- and the ASC says this is not OK.

The exemption waters down the law and exposes people to secondhand smoke, say ACS spokeswoman Wendy Simpkins.

The smoking ban was approved by 58 percent of voters in November, took effect in December, and will result in fining beginning the first week in May. The law prohibits smoking in most public places, such as restaurants, bars, and office and excludes tobacco shops, designated hotel rooms, and enclosed areas of nursing homes. Halls and clubs can be excluded from the law only if there are no employees.

Jay Carey, spokesman for the state Health Department, says public health officials have the authority to set rules for enforcement. They ultimately decided that VFW halls and other private clubs were exempt if they had only members as employees. For the exemption to apply, such clubs also must be nonprofit and in a freestanding building. No nonmembers or children under age 18 can be present.

The ACS argues that the state rules are confusing and make the law unworkable.

Did you know that at least 200,000 people die every year from cancers related to where they work? The main reasons are from inhaling asbestos fibers and second hand smoke. This was reported today by the World Health Organization (WHO).

About 125 million people are exposed to asbestos at work, leading to at least 90,000 deaths per year. Benzene, an organic compound used in rubbers, dyes and pesticides, causes thousands to die of leukemia each year. Those subjected to second hand smoke have twice the risk of developing lung cancer than those that work in a smoke free environment.

This means that we could be preventing so many cancer deaths if the industries would tighten safety standards for their employees.

Secondhand smoke rears its ugly head once again -- this time in the form of study results revealing high levels of secondhand smoke in the workplace can double the risk of lung cancer for non-smokers.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago looked at results from 22 studies conducted in the United States, Canada, Europe, India, Japan, and China. What they found -- and published in the American Journal of Public Health -- is a lung cancer risk 50 percent higher than normal for non-smokers exposed to smoke on the job for more than 30 years. They also found risk increases with level of exposure.

"We believe that our study provides the strongest evidence to date that smoking in the workplace does present a substantial risk to workers -- and particularly to workers who are working in highly exposed areas such as bar workers or restaurant workers," lead researcher Leslie Stayner said.

Previous evidence for increased lung cancer risk caused by secondhand smoke comes from studies of non-smokers married to smokers.

Secondhand smoke -- also known as passive smoke and environmental tobacco smoke -- is smoke from a cigarette, pipe, or cigar as well as smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers and inhaled by non-smokers. It can cause cancer, respiratory problems, and asthma in non-smokers and is leading to increased efforts by communities to ban or limit smoking in the workplace.

This week in France, bans begin in offices, stores, schools, and hospitals. Come January 2008, cafes and restaurants must also comply with bans. For now, smoking in these areas is permitted in hermetically sealed rooms without any services.

An ABC news team in Australia abandoned its Brisbane radio studio yesterday after an investigation revealed there is something about the workplace causing breast cancer.

It's not clear what the cause may be, but the five-month-long investigation concluded a breast cancer cluster is related to the office environment.

Twelve women who worked at the Brisbane Toowong office had been diagnosed with breast cancer over the past 11 years. Eight of these women worked in the newsroom. Most had been there for more than five years.

ABC managing editor Mark Scott would not move his staff earlier this year when 100 staff members walked off the job in July, demanding relocation. He said it would take evidence -- not just suspicion -- of a breast cancer cluster for him to agree to relocation. Now he has evidence.

The investigation report shows women who worked at this office reported breast cancer at a rate 11 times higher than the general working community.

In addition to the relocation, all female staff at Toowong office were offered free mammograms and free counseling services during the investigation. Yesterday, Scott extended the offer to women at other ABC sites in Australia.

Author and breast cancer survivor Barbara Delinsky has just released an updated edition of her book UPLIFT: Secrets from the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors and like her previous editions, this one delivers inspiring real-life stories from real-life survivors -- like Deb Haney, an administrative assistant diagnosed in 1996 at age 48, who reveals her secret to surviving breast cancer in the workplace.

"My boss at the time was my brother. He suggested I go for radiation treatment in the morning, work a few hours, then go home and rest in the afternoons. That is what I did, because even though I looked great, I was unbelievably tired. When illness comes, we need to listen to our bodies and give them the time to rest and recover. I hadn't anticipated it, but those afternoon hours became a truly peaceful, nurturing time to read and rest and enjoy quiet time."

Delinsky offers a chapter in her book called A Workplace Manual -- it's a place where survivors like Haney share strategies that helped them maintain the crucial balance between cancer and work.

Delinsky writes, "What works for one woman may not work for another. What works in one job may not work in another. The thing is, you need to take a step back, think about yourself and your situation, then speak up about what may work for you. In every situation, you have choices, and the choices are all good. What pleases one woman may not please another."

And so the women featured in UPLIFT share their individual choices. And their choices become options for the millions of women surviving a disease that throws everything off balance.

Rosamary Amiet, a program manager diagnosed in 2000 at age 48, shares, "I juggled cancer and work by just giving up some things, like housework. I discovered that the house could go for weeks without being vacuumed or dusted -- and not only did the sky not fall, it didn't even crack!"

UPLIFT is not all about the workplace. It's also about chemotherapy and losing hair and losing breasts. It's about family and humor and men. It's about religion and exercise and diagnosis. It's about help. It's about hope. It's about sisterhood -- plain and simple.

I think it's safe to say that a large amount of women in this world lack self confidence. Tack on a few incisions and scars, some lop-sided or altogether missing breasts, a handful of scattered blue tattoos, a head full of newly sprouting hair, swelling arms, drug-damaged fingernails and toenails, damaged veins, alien-like ports protruding from underneath skin, unpredictable hot flashes, and a foggy brain and it's clear that women surviving breast cancer may have a few of their own issues concerning self confidence. It doesn't take science to prove this reality -- although there are studies out there that do confirm and validate that breast cancer survivors struggle with positive self images.

Results of a study released Wednesday reveal that the vast majority of breast cancer patients in Taiwan lose self confidence after having their breasts removed. The study shows that 90 percent of participants feel they have lost their beauty and femininity following a mastectomy. Women worry about their partner's perception of them after such radical appearance changes. They doubt their roles in their workplace and families. They are even afraid of having sex with their partners. And if the patients' relationship with their spouses are not good in the first place, breast removal surgery will lead to divorce about 10 percent of the time.

There is no doubt that female roles vary from country to country -- and what studies show in Taiwan may not be completely applicable to women in the United States. But there is one universal truth that knows no boundaries -- all women recovering from the ravages of breast cancer will encounter struggles. Because breast cancer does not discriminate when it comes to compromising the self esteem of its targets.

Dealing with cancer in private is hard. Dealing with cancer publicly can be even harder. CEO Donna McAleer -- the founding executive and public face of the large, growing health care company Elant -- knows this firsthand. She just recently went public with her breast cancer diagnosis and prognosis after rumors of her demise started circulating. McAleer set the record straight, announcing that she is doing just fine. While her experience has been frightening, she is surviving well -- and she wants the public to know. She has run Elant for 20 years and wants to dispel any myths about its stability. Apple CEO Steve Jobs faced the same public drama in 2004 after surgery for pancreatic cancer and subsequent drops in Apple stock. Jobs recovered -- and so did the stock -- but the speculation that swirled was powerful and potentially damaging. Just as it was that same year when Kraft Foods was criticized for withholding details of its CEO's hospitalization.

There is some debate in the business world about all of this -- about whether or not executive illnesses should be disclosed. For public companies, one opinion is that there is an obligation to respond quickly to the public. In a private company, it's up to the CEO. McAleer's Elant is not a publicly traded company and there is no worry about stock price -- but her decision to reveal her personal health crisis was the right thing to do, she says. "I have an obligation to share this news in how I progress, in order to educate and make sure people aren't frightened by it," she said in reference to the memo she sent to her 700 employees and community groups too.

I'm open and honest about my own cancer experience because I believe it can help others -- and it helps me to talk about it too. So I'm a fan of a forthcoming approach in the workplace. I appreciate that some fear repercussions that might result from such a disclosure. But honesty may be the best policy -- for prevention of rumors and addressing worry and raising awareness too. McAleer seems to agree as she takes this opportunity to speak up, to encourage women to seek mammograms and to follow up on them.

As Washington churns ahead with its no smoking policy in public places -- joining many other cities with the same policy -- much of eastern Canada now requires smokers to light up outside as one of North America's most restrictive bans went into effect on Wednesday. Smoking already has been banned from most workplaces across Canada but the ban in Ontario and Quebec now extends to public places in general, including bars, restaurants and schools. The ban also calls on employers to close designated smoking rooms and requires retailers to ask for identification from cigarette buyers if they appear younger than 25. Though similar bans exist in some American states, few are as restrictive as the bans launched in Ontario and Quebec, according to anti-smoking advocates on both sides of the border.

It seems that more and more local governments are taking the step to listen to the warnings of second-hand smoke and cancer warnings as well as other health issues. This smoking ban sets a safety policy to protect those that do not want to light up or do not want to breathe the smoke of others doing so while in public places. It sets off many conversational debates in public places like bars and nightclubs -- where smoking, drinking, and gathering with friends have always been the norm in night-life socializing scenes. Restaurant and club owners fear business will drop but statistics show that to be untrue in many areas like NYC and Seattle that have booming night-life socializing scenes.

I have friends and family members that work in night-life environments and they have welcomed these laws making it easier on them to continue doing their work with less health complications and colds. One friend actually moved to NYC to make her living as a bar manager when they first banned smoking in public places. As an entertainer and having many friends that are in the music industry, it opens up more places for us to perform that we otherwise would pass by because of the smoking inside. Of course not everyone is happy with the laws.

I did not know -- until I was sitting in the Cancer Center receiving chemo for breast cancer last year -- that author Barbara Delinsky is a breast cancer survivor.  My sister handed me a book off the shelf in this infusion center filled to the brim with cancer patients, all seated neatly in a row on pink leather recliners.  I started flipping through the book -- called Uplift: Secrets from the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors -- when I realized it was written by a best-selling author I had read before.  Her novels have caught my attention on several occasions and have been some of the books I have had a hard time putting down.  This book was no different.

Uplift is a book full of anecdotes and advice and wisdom shared by every-day breast cancer survivors -- and the family, friends, and men in their lives too. Topics include chemo and hair, the workplace, humor, exercise, and religion, among others. And without medical jargon or statistical reports, readers learn from those who have been there -- and want to make the road easier for those who follow.

I had to put Uplift back on the shelf once my infusion was complete but days later, I received a package in the mail from a former co-worker and friend.  Inside the package was my very own personal Uplift.  I have read it and reread it.  I have loaned it out and recommended it and quoted from it.  It is truly uplifting.