truesee's Blog

Cancer treatment enters 'very exciting' era

Cancer treatment is entering a “very exciting” era as a number of projects reach fruition that could stop the disease being a major cause of death, Britain’s leading cancer scientist is to claim.

Richard Alleyne

Science Correspondent
2:55PM BST 04 Oct 2009

Sir David Lane, chief scientist at Cancer Research UK, believes care will be dramatically transformed as teams close in on techniques that are likely to lead to the creation of a new generation of drugs.

“The next few years are going to be very exciting,” he will tell the National Cancer Research Institute.

“There are new drugs coming through that look very promising. Discoveries that were made 25 years ago are now having their impact in the clinic.

“It would be wrong to raise hopes for patients in the very short term, but it would be unimaginable if we did not turn this work into something immensely useful in 10 to 20 years.

“I think that cancer will become a disease that is not a major cause of death.”

Dr Lane will be the keynote speaker at the annual conference of the National Cancer Research Institute being held in Birmingham.

Dr Lane and the delegation will celebrate the 30th anniversary of his discovery of a human protein called p53, shown to play a pivotal role in the spread of nearly all cancers.

He said that the protein remained at the centre of the research.

“I was only a junior scientist at the time. It was clear p53 was important,” he said.

“However, none of us had any idea that it would turn out to be vital to understanding cancer. It is almost a universal factor we now realise.”

Known as the “guardian of the genome”, p53 is key to the prevention of cancers.

The disease arises because DNA errors build up inside the body’s cells. It is the role of p53 to correct those errors and prevent cancerous mutations from spreading. It organises repairs to damaged cells and, in those beyond repair, it arranges for the cell to be killed off before it can spread and divide.

However, sometimes p53 becomes damaged itself and cannot do its job.

As a result, rogue cancer cells are able to form a tumour.

“In this sense, you can think of cancers as the living dead – they are made up of cells that should have been killed off but which somehow have not and which pass through the body with deadly consequences,” said Dr Lane.

The crucial point about the discovery of p53’s almost universal role in the formation of nearly all of the 200 types of cancer that affect humans is that it has raised immediate prospects of developing treatments for a wide range of tumours.

Hence the excitement among cancer experts and the number of scientific studies now focused on the protein. These studies led last year to the publication of an average of 10 scientific reports on p53 every day.

Many of these studies are already producing results, as Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician, will tell the conference.

“We are starting to use our understanding of p53 to select treatment,” he said.

Dr Lane said what was now needed was to develop a drug that could pinpoint a cell with no p53 in it or possessed a mutated form of p53.

It could then destroy that cell before it could spread and cause cancer.

“That is the ultimate goal. We have a way to go, but we are confident. The last few years have been immensely encouraging.”

He hopes you never live a week like this

Beating, robbery followed by accidental shooting

Friday,  October 2, 2009 3:08 AM

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Times have been tough for Ralph Needs.

The 80-year-old still aches from a broken nose and other beating injuries. His right hand is bandaged to protect a gunshot wound.

He can't return to his Groveport home because it's trashed. And his new, red Ford F-350 pickup truck was stolen.

"Hell, for anybody to have been beaten and shot, that would be a bad week," said Groveport Police Chief Gary York.

Needs' problems started Sept. 20. He fell asleep about 8:30 p.m. while watching TV in his bedroom and awoke to find two men standing over his bed.

They'd broken a sliding-glass door to get in and, for some reason, thought he had a lot of money.

For three hours, he was pistol-whipped, tormented and threatened with death.

He doesn't know why he was picked on. Perhaps, he said, it was the new truck in the driveway of his Bixby Road home.

"I don't have a real explanation. It may have given an appearance of money," Needs said this week.

The men eventually took the truck, a computer and credit cards.

Four days later, Needs was shot in his right pinkie and thumb. His eldest son, Steve, was trying to teach Needs how to defend himself with a gun. As Steve loaded the 9 mm pistol, it went off.

Because the shooting was accidental, no charge will be filed, York said.

Needs said he had always felt safe in the Groveport house he has lived in since 1973, even while living alone after his wife died six years ago. He's now living in Lancaster with a relative because his house was ransacked.

"They completely ruined the house, upstairs and downstairs," Needs said.

He was tied up with his belt, punched in the mouth and smacked with a pistol. At one point, his attackers kept him in his bathtub.

"I wouldn't want anyone else to go through it," he said. "They meant to kill me."

Two men terrorized Needs while at least one other -- and maybe more -- turned his house upside down looking for money and items to steal.

One of the assailants kept threatening to kill, electrocute or burn him unless he forked over $20,000, he said. Needs said he doesn't have that kind of cash, but he handed over his credit and debit cards.

One of the robbers took the debit card to an ATM and, with Needs' personal-identification number, withdrew $500.

Needs said one attacker promised, "I am going to burn him."

That man threatened Needs with something that Needs didn't see because, when it was plugged in, the lights in the bathroom were blown out.

When the men left, they locked him in a room by tying two doors together, but he was able to force his way out.

Last week, police found Needs' computer in a house at 1540 Weber Rd. in Columbus. Groveport and Columbus police questioned six people, and Paul D. Keel, 36, who lives there, was charged with receiving stolen property.

Police would not say what led them to Keel. No one has been charged with the assault.

One assailant threatened repeatedly to kill, electrocute or burn Needs unless he forked over $20,000, he said. Needs said he doesn't have that kind of cash, but he handed over his credit and debit cards.

LINK TO PHOTO OF NEEDS':

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/10/02/needs.ART_ART_10-02-09_A1_4EF8KNS.html

Stephanie Gutmann

Stephanie Gutmann was a journalist in Manhattan for about 16 years. She is the author of The Kinder, Gentler Military: Can America's Gender-Neutral Fighting Force Still Win Wars? and The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy.

Top Ten Reasons Chicago Didn't Get the Olympics

Stephanie Gutmann

World

Last updated: October 3rd, 2009

Top Ten Reasons Chicago Didn’t Get the Olympics

10. Dead people can’t vote at IOC meetings

9. Obama distracted by 25 min meeting with Gen. McChrystal

8. Who cares if Obama couldn’t talk the IOC into Chicago? He’ll be able to talk Iran out of nukes.

7. The impediment is Israel still building settlements.

6. Obviously no president would have been able to accomplish it.

5. We’ve been quite clear and said all along that we didn’t want the Olympics.

4. This isn’t about the number of Olympics “lost”, it’s about the number of Olympics “saved” or “created”.

3. Clearly not enough wise Latina judges on the committee

2. Because the IOC is racist.

1. It’s George Bush’s fault.

Cops find aspiring pol alive in Maryland

Friday, October 2, 2009

Philadelphia Daily News

A Southwest Philadelphia man who apparently planned to run for office against U.S. Rep. Bob Brady was found alive in Maryland yesterday, a day after police thought that he had been abducted.

Got it? Didn’t think so. The perplexing tale goes something like this:
On Tuesday, Eastwick resident Bismark Agbemble, 29, told his girlfriend, his father and a friend that he had been threatened on the street — he didn’t say where — by two men, police sources said.

Agbemble, a motivational speaker who refers to himself as “Mr. CEO,” was apparently so unnerved by the threats that he stayed at a relative’s house in Yeadon that night.

The following day, his family became worried when he didn’t show up to teach his regular class at ITT Technical Institute in King of Prussia, sources said.

When a relative went to his Eastwick home, the garage door was open, furniture was overturned inside and threatening graffiti was sprayed on the walls, the sources said.

The relative called police, who began trying to piece together the mystifying case.

“There was some concern, because of these threats he had described to others,” said Capt. Benjamin Naish, of Southwest Detectives.

Agbemble’s cell phone had been turned off, and the message had been changed to one “that suggested he was being held against his will,” Naish said.

But with no ransom note, and no contact from any abductors, police and FBI agents who joined the investigation couldn’t make out the situation.

Then, yesterday, they caught a break. Agbemble’s cell phone was apparently turned on and traced to Glen Burnie, Md., Naish said.

Glen Burnie police found Agbemble in a blue Jaguar outside a hotel he apparently had checked into. He appeared to be unharmed.

Investigators interviewed Agbemble and were convinced the “whole thing had been made up, that the threats were not real,” Naish said.

Sources said investigators believe Agbemble may have been plagued recently by mental-health problems. 
The former appears to be set up for campaign donations, while the latter features a photo of Agbemble and describes an advocacy group he was a part of.

The site also features a quote from Agbemble that sounds like a campaign theme:

“We’re united by our shared vision to improve the lives of all individuals.”

A month in jail for keying car of Silicon Valley millionaire

Tracey Kaplan

Mercury News

10/02/2009 03:34:18 PM PDT

Updated: 10/02/2009 10:04:31 PM PDT 

Ending a bizarre four-year ordeal over a vandalized car, an amateur lawyer charged with keying Silicon Valley millionaire Steve Kirsch's electric vehicle was sentenced Friday to serve at least a month in jail.

Judge Joyce Allegro said if convicted vandal Howard Herships fails to comply with stiff probation conditions, she will put him behind bars for a year. Herships, 65, must also take three months of anger management classes, pay Kirsch $5,000 for his legal fees, and complete psychiatric counseling at the direction of probation officials. Allegro also barred the self-styled legal beagle from the unauthorized practice of law.

The sentence resolves a drama prolonged by Herships, who filed a mountain of motions a foot tall in a case ultimately involving seven judges, four prosecutors and more than 60 court appearances — over two scratch marks less than 6 inches long on the rear door of a Toyota RAV4.

Herships keyed the car in 2005 immediately after Kirsch, an avid anti-junk-fax crusader, won a court case against a friend of Herships' for sending multiple unsolicited faxes. The car was parked in the parking lot of the Palo Alto courthouse.

Damage to the electric vehicle: $653.13.

Cost of the case to taxpayers: No one kept tabs, but enough to purchase more than a few new $28,000 RAV4s.

Societal value of sentence, prosecutors say: Priceless.

Prosecutors insisted all along that this was no ordinary vandalism case, and the judge agreed, noted Deputy District Attorney Marisa McKeown, the young prosecutor who fielded dozens of phone calls and legal papers generated by Herships.

Allegro told the court Friday that she viewed the matter not only as a case of vandalism but also as perjury, contempt of court and witness intimidation, McKeown said.

Kirsch said he was relieved the case was finally resolved. "For that sort of behavior, there should be zero tolerance, and I'm appreciative of how the judge handled it," he said Friday after the sentencing.

Herships has been declared a vexatious litigant, or legal pest, by the San Francisco courts for filing repeated frivolous claims, meaning he cannot file any new actions in any state court without permission of the presiding judge. But no such restrictions apply in federal court. Kirsch said Herships "had the gall" to promise in a Sept. 5 e-mail that he would drop a federal lawsuit he filed against Kirsch over the car if Kirsch paid him $1.8 million.

"However, I am open to a counter-offer," Herships wrote.

Kirsch said Friday that he did not make a counteroffer. "However," Kirsch said, "the state has now made Howard an offer he can't refuse."

Howard Herships, who keyed millionaire Steve Kirschs electric car, was sentenced Friday to a year in jail - with all but one month suspended, meaning hell serve about a month in jail. (Santa Clara County Department of Corrections)

JASON NARK
Philadelphia Daily News

Posted on Sat, Oct. 3, 2009

Cleared con gets his freedom, not his cash

DAVID MAIALETTI 

Staff photographer Larry Peterson

was convicted of a 1987 rape/murder and served 18

years in jail before being exonerated.

THERE are a lot of numbers rolling around in Larry Peterson's head right now, and they just don't add up.

It's been four years since DNA evidence exonerated him for the 1987 rape and murder of a Burlington County woman, but the nearly 18 years he spent in jail for the crime still eat away at him every day.

Even though New Jersey law grants wrongfully convicted prisoners the right to sue the state for up to $20,000 for each year they spent behind bars, he can't believe that the state has spent $214,672 fighting his lawsuits.

"I am mad," Peterson, 58, said recently, smoking a small cigar outside his attorney's office in Moorestown. "I am angry as hell."

Peterson, bedecked in a suit made of a "mixture of reptiles," said he might as well still be wearing his old prison jumpsuit.

"I just went from one prison to another," he said.

William Buckman, Peterson's attorney, said that the state initially agreed to pay Peterson under the 1997 law but that Peterson hasn't received a dime since he filed his compensation lawsuit against the Treasury Department in Superior Court in 2006.

"They had actually agreed to pay him $460,000, but they just never came through with it," Buckman said.

Peterson also filed a federal lawsuit that seeks damages from the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office for violating his civil rights during his arrest, trial and conviction. In court filings, the prosecutor's office has denied those allegations.

Lee Moore, a spokesman for the New Jersey Attorney General's Office, said both lawsuits are being handled by the Teaneck firm of DeCotiis, FitzPatrick, Cole & Wisler.

Moore declined to comment on the cases, but as of last week, he said the state has paid the Teaneck firm $214,672 to represent them in the lawsuits.

s both lawsuits continue to wind their way through the legal system, Buckman claims the state has also put a freeze on expunging Peterson's criminal record.

"It's really Kafka-esque," Buckman said. "There seems to be no sense behind it, other than sheer vindictiveness."

He said it appears that the compensation law was enacted merely for New Jersey to pride itself as a "progressive" state.

"It's got enough loopholes in it to swallow the whole concept," he said.

The statute requires that "innocent persons" must "demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence" that they were mistakenly convicted and imprisoned.

Moore said about 10 individuals have been paid under the wrongful-conviction law since it was enacted.

During Peterson's trial, four witnesses testified that he had confessed to raping and murdering Jacqueline Harrison, whose body was found in a soybean field in Pemberton Township.

Peterson was convicted in 1989 and sentenced to life in prison. In 2003, with the help of the New York-based Innocence Project, Peterson won the right to test the state's biological evidence: hair, skin, blood and semen.

None of them matched Peterson's. Hairs that were reported to be a match with Peterson's belonged to the victim.

Rebecca Brown, a policy advocate with the Innocence Project, said there is legislation in the works in New Jersey that would allow wrongfully convicted prisoners to receive immediate compensation, as well as social services such as job training and housing.

"The goal with any sort of re-entry plan is to do everything possible for people to re-enter society and thrive," she said.

Peterson said he would have received more help from the state if he had been paroled from prison. Instead, he was released into the modern world with few job and life skills.

"I didn't know how to use a cell phone. I didn't know how to use a computer. Everything to me was a challenge. Everything was new to me," he said.

Buckman said he advises Peterson to write "No" when asked on job applications if he's ever been convicted of a crime, but the question always makes Peterson cringe.

In the Internet age, anyone can look him up, make their own judgments and close the door on him, said Brown, of the Innocence Project.

"People feel like they're in this no-man's land. They're not a probationer. They're not a parolee, and yet they're not really free," she said.

"We've heard about exonorees walking around with newspaper articles mentioning that they're exonorees."

Since he's been out, Peterson has worked as a newspaper hawker in Trenton and occasionally as a carpenter. He went to school to get his commercial driver's license, but couldn't find a driving job.

"I've probably applied to over 150 jobs and got a lot of 'Thanks, we'll call you back,' " Peterson said.

Recently, he started a landscaping business, and said he enjoys the sun on his face and cash in his pocket for a hard day's work.

The ever-present threat of prison violence has been replaced by the constant love of a new wife back in his hometown of Pemberton.

"She's the greatest thing that ever happened to me," Peterson said.

Still, Peterson says he can't subtract those 18 years from his mind, no matter when, or if, the state gets around to paying him.

Slow chicken order leads to assault arrest at Norwell KFC

Posted Oct 02, 2009 

01:17 PM Last update Oct 02, 2009  08:02 P

LI NK TO PHOTO:

http://www.patriotledger.com/homepage/x710749625/Slow-chicken-order-leads-to-assault-arrest-at-Norwell-KFC#Scene_1

Clerk says: Show me the gun and I'll show you the money

Bill Kirk

Eagle-Tribune

October 02, 2009 08:47 am

Half a million road crashes 'caused by women drivers applying make-up'

Nearly half a million road accidents a year are caused by women drivers applying make-up behind the wheel, a new survey discloses.

Telegraph UK 

7:00AM BST 02 Oct 2009

Nearly half a million crashes a year are blamed on women drivers applying make-up Photo: ANDREW CROWLEY

Around on fifth of female motorists confess they have touched up their mascara on the move – equivalent to 2.7 million of Britain's 15 million women drivers.

Three per cent admitted causing a collision when distracted by applying cosmetics.

The poll of 4,000 women drivers by women's motor insurer Diamond comes a year after the introduction of a new offence of causing death by careless driving which carries a prison sentence of up to two years.

Previously, careless driving offences – including applying make-up, eating and map-reading – were punishable only by a fine.

Young women, aged between 17 and 21, were found to be the most likely to put beauty before safety and most liable to crash their car as a result.

Twenty-seven per cent confessed to putting on make-up and nine per cent of those aged 18 or younger have had a crash while doing so – three times the average.

That compares with just six per cent of women aged 56 or older who are least likely to do it at the wheel and just one in 200 – 0.5 per cent – in that age group who have had an accident while applying make-up.

Diamond managing director Sian Lewis said it is "worrying" that so many women put themselves and other road users at risk.

"We all have busy lives but applying your make-up when you're driving means your full attention is not on the road ahead," she said.

"Is your mascara more important than yours and other road users' safety? Even if you're lucky enough to arrive at your destination safely, you could be charged with careless driving if spotted by the police.

"Women are generally great at doing more than one thing at once but this is definitely one area where multitasking should not be practised."

In March 2006, 22-year-old part-time model Donna Maddock, of Mold, North Wales, was fined £200 with six penalty points for careless driving for applying make-up at the wheel of her Vauxhall Astra whilst doing 32mph on the A490 near Abersoch.

A separate survey earlier this year found that seven out of ten drivers believe it should lead to an automatic ban.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents appealed for women to avoid the potentially deadly distraction and warned it could prove fatal.

"It should go without saying that applying make-up while driving is a dangerous thing to do," said RoSPA's head of road safety Kevin Clinton.

"Driving requires concentration and even a momentary lapse could turn a near-miss into a serious or even fatal accident. Commonsense says apply make-up before or after driving."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091002/sc_afp/healthscienceusbritainbiology

Teller Couldn't Read Robbery Suspect's Note

Police: Stephanie Martin Re-Wrote Threatening Note On Bank Slip

HILLSBORO, Ore. -- A 30-year-old woman tried to rob a bank Wednesday by handing a teller a threatening note, but the teller couldn't read her handwriting, police said.

Hillsboro police said Stephanie Martin walked into a Wells Fargo bank in Hillsboro and handed the teller a note that read, "Need $300 or I'll kill you. I'm serious."

The teller told Martin she couldn't read the handwriting, police said. Martin then walked to a counter and re-wrote the note on a bank slip, according to Lt. Mike Rouches, of the Hillsboro Police Department.

The teller then hit the silent alarm and the bank's manager asked how he could help Martin, Rouches said.

Martin then said she wanted to open an account with the bank, according to officers.

Police and FBI agents arrived at the scene and arrested Martin, who police determined was under the influence of drugs, Rouches said.

LINK TO PHOTO OF STEPHANIE MARTIN:

 http://www.kptv.com/news/21164584/detail.html#

Four-year-old boy a heavy smoker

The Daily Telegraph October 01, 2009 11:09AM 

Deadly habit ... Dong Dong, 4, smokes a cigarette Source: The Daily Telegraph

SHOCKING pictures have emerged of a boy who is a heavy smoker - at just four years of age.

And the Jianghuai Morning Post reports that little Dong Dong, from Banqiao village in China's Anhui province, has been smoking since he was only two.

Dong lives with his grandparents, who run a grocery shop. They say he constantly steals cigarettes to feed his deadly habit.

He also drinks alcohol.

"When he needs cigarettes, he just takes them from the house or steals a pack from the store. We just can't seem to stop him," his grandmother told the paper.

Local doctor Zhang Gong, from Anhui Provincial Children's Hospital, was shocked to see a four-year-old smoke.

"From the way the boy smokes and his posture, he looks to have had a long history of smoking even though he is so young," he added.

Man Sues Froot Loops for Not Being Frooty at All

Man files suit in San Francisco court alleging he was deceived by frooty moniker

SAJID FAROOQ

Updated 7:08 AM CDT, Wed, Sep 30, 2009

Is froot the same as fruit?

Roy Werbel thought the two words meant the same thing and now he is mad as hell at Toucan Sam for his treasure chest of deceit. The man filed a lawsuit against Kellog's Froot Loops cereal in San Francisco federal court for allegedly intentionally misleading breakfast eaters into believing those delicious colorful loops were actually made from fruit.

Werbel says in his court filing that he mistakenly ate the frooty cereal believing it was healthy for him. Now he is demanding unspecified punitive and actual damages to be paid to everyone else who was taken by the cunning Toucan Sam's friendly smile.

And the fruity plaintiff does not stop there. Werbel filed a separate suit against Pepsico, the maker of Cap'n Crunch Crunch Berries cereal, because again he thought there was real fruit in the box.

New fossil moves story of mankind back one million years

Meet Ardi, our oldest known ancestor, who sheds new light on the link between chimps and humans.

Richard Alleyne

Telegraph UK

Science Correspondent
5:12PM BST 01 Oct 2009

Ardi lived a million years before the previous oldest discovered fossil

Photo: PA

The seven stone, four-foot tall female roamed forests 4.4 million years ago – a million years before the previous oldest discovered fossil.

Her skeleton promises to fill in gaps about how we became human and evolved from apes. It has already reversed some common assumptions of evolution.

Rather than humans evolving from chimps, the new find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved together from another common more ancient ancestor.

Each has evolved and changed separately along the way, it is believed.

Formally known as Ardipithecus ramidus — which means root of the ground ape — the find is detailed in 11 research papers published in the journal Science.

“This is not that common ancestor, but it’s the closest we have ever been able to come,” said Dr Tim White, an anthropologist and one of the researchers at the University of California.

The lines that evolved into modern humans and living apes probably shared an ancestor six million to seven million years ago, the research suggests.

Ardi has many traits that do not appear in modern-day African apes, leading to the conclusion that the apes evolved extensively since they shared that last common ancestor with humans.

A study of Ardi, under way since the first bones were discovered in 1994 in the Afar region of Ethiopia, indicates her species lived in the woodlands and could climb on all fours along tree branches.

But the development of arms and legs indicates she did not spend much time in the trees, the study claims.

Her pelvis suggests she walked upright and her teeth are closer to humans than primates. While she would have had a muzzle, it did not project out as much as modern apes.

Dr White described her as a “mosaic” that was neither human or chimpanzee.

“The only way we’re really going to know what this last common ancestor looked like is to go and find it,” he said. “Well, at 4.4 million years ago we found something pretty close to it.”

Dr David Pilbeam, palaeoanthropology at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, said: “This is one of the most important discoveries for the study of human evolution.

“It is relatively complete in that it preserves head, hands, feet, and some critical parts in between.”

Until the discovery of Ardi, the earliest well-known stage of human evolution was Australopithecus, the small-brained, fully bipedal “ape man” that lived between four million and one million years ago.

The most famous Australopithecus fossil is the 3.2-million-year-old “Lucy,” found in 1974 about 45 miles north of where Ardi would later be discovered.

Lucy was described as the “mother of man” and the missing link between humans and chimps. Before Ardi, she was thought to be the oldest fossil of a human ancestor that walked on two legs.

Dallas woman fuming over smoking neighbor at complex

  01:46 PM CDT on Wednesday, September 30, 2009

SCOTT FARWELL

The Dallas Morning News

In an age when smoking has been outlawed in most public places – government buildings, bars and pool halls – a person's home is one of the few places you can puff in peace.

Until now.

A Dallas woman has filed a lawsuit seeking six figures from a former neighbor and landlord for damage she says was caused by cigarette smoke wafting through adjoining walls of her high-end townhome

"Smoking is not a right, it's a privilege," said Chris Daniel, a retired nurse. "I'm sorry that people smoke. I think it's foolish, but when it comes into my house and hurts my health and my daughter's health and our belongings, it's a different issue."

The case is being watched by townhouse industry groups across the area.

A manager and attorney for Estancia Townhomes, a 52-building community near Prestonwood Country Club in North Dallas, said it's unlikely the Daniels sustained any smoke damage. There is a solid, two-hour fire wall from the foundation to the roof between each of the homes.

And even if some smell did seep through, the Daniels renewed their lease at Estancia – where smoking is permitted – six months after they say the problem began.

"Why do people file lawsuits?" asked Ginger Tye, an attorney representing the property managers and owners. "They're asking for money damages."

The next-door smoker, Rebecca Williams, declined comment.

Chris Daniel and her daughter, Cary, say in the lawsuit that a construction defect is allowing smoke to migrate between the units.

After a year of stinging eyes, breathing difficulty and sinus pain, they moved out of Estancia and into the Homewood Suites in Addison. Last week, movers wearing surgical masks loaded trucks with their belongings.

The Daniels said furniture will need to be reupholstered, artwork restored and closets full of clothing dry cleaned. The bills are still piling up.

"There's nothing in our home that was ready made. I picked out fabrics, everything was custom made and everything was spotless," said Chris Daniel.

"It's not like our worldly goods are the most important things in our life, but you know what? I don't expect them to be damaged."

Some multifamily communities have followed the lead of hotels and car-rental companies – designating nonsmoking rooms or buildings. The Glass House, a 21-story high-rise in Dallas' Uptown, markets itself as a smoke-free property.

Unfamiliar territory

Kathy Carlton, director of government affairs for the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas, said she's never heard of a case such as the one filed by the Daniels.

She said most people who are highly sensitive to cigarette smoke don't move into a community or a building where it's allowed.

"Generally, this stuff is the property owners' prerogative, and people either live by the rules or move on down the street," Carlton said.

"If you have a pet, you look for a place that takes pets. If you hate pets, you look for a place that doesn't allow them. People have choices."

The Daniels said the freedom to choose cuts both ways.

Yes, people may be entitled to smoke in their home – but others are equally entitled to live in a clean and healthy environment.

The right to swing your fist, they said, ends when it meets my nose.

"This lease says I have a right to a habitable place, this lease says I have a right to quiet enjoyment, this lease says I have a right to safe living," said Chris Daniel, referring to court documents.

"And I did have that ... until someone moved in who did not care about her neighbor."

The Daniels lived at Estancia for four years. Today, after a final walkthrough of their home with an attorney and managers, they will hand over the keys.

Nicole Lott, property director at Estancia, said it's been a long year of acrimony.

Managers replaced air filters repeatedly, installed sealant-type electrical plates and – at the Daniels' request – used an industrial-grade roofing sealant to caulk pipes under their kitchen cabinet.

When that didn't work, managers tried to negotiate a move for both tenants within the community.

Restraining order

Williams, the smoker, finally moved to another unit in June after a judge issued a temporary restraining order forbidding her from lighting up in her home.

"We've done more for these people than we've ever done for anyone else," Lott said. "I don't think it's possible to satisfy them."

Chris Daniel also filed a complaint under the Texas Fair Housing Act, alleging that her sensitivity to cigarette smoke qualifies her for protection set aside for people with disabilities.

The complaint is being reviewed by Dallas' Fair Housing Office.

First Assistant City Attorney Chris Bowers said a garden-variety reaction to cigarette smoke – puffy eyes, runny nose, coughing – would probably not meet the standard set by the law, a severe limitation of a major life activity.

"Not just anybody will be able to say smoking has that effect, and that's one of the things our Fair Housing Office will investigate," he said.

"It's safe to say most people do not suffer the degree of impairment this person alleges from cigarette smoke."

Chris Daniel has been treated by an allergist and an internist, according to court records, and was prescribed two inhalers.

Dr. Barbara Stark Baxter, a clinical associate professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center, wrote that Daniels "qualifies as disabled under the Texas Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act."

Her attorney, John Clark Long V, said his clients were essentially driven from their home by cigarette smoke.

He illustrated the case this way:

"It was like living life in an ashtray you can never clean."

The plaintiff

Cigarette smoke from a next-door townhome prevented her from breathing and ruined a life's worth of belongings.

The defendants

Smoking is not prohibited in the complex, and construction standards prevent the migration of smoke from one unit to another.

The Dallas city attorney's office

The complaint is under review by the city's Fair Housing Office. To qualify for protection, the cigarette smoke would have to impair a major life function – such as breathing.

The physician

The plaintiff qualifies as disabled under the Texas Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Apartment Association of Greater Dallas

Rules regarding smoking are the prerogative of individual property owners and managers.

SOURCE: Dallas Morning News research

JOHN F. RHODES

Cary Daniel and her mother Chris Daniel, of Dallas, claim fumes from a smoking neighbor invaded their townhome where they used to live, by coming through a heating