* Cough! *

Casinos can cause calamitous damage to your personal finances, which can impact your health in 50 different ways, but do people want to talk about that? N-O-O-O!. People want to talk about second-hand smoke! Well, whatever keeps you out of casinos, I suppose!:

Five years of research led by a University of Nevada, Reno department head in Reno and Las Vegas casinos have concluded there is a direct correlation between exposure to secondhand smoke in the workplace and damage to the employees' DNA.

"The more they were exposed to environmental tobacco smoke, the more the DNA damage, and that's going to lead to a higher risk of heart disease and cancer down the road," said Chris Pritsos.

Funded by a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, the clinical trial followed 125 employees who work on the gambling floors of casinos in both northern and southern Nevada.

The subjects of the study were nonsmokers who were not exposed to secondhand smoke in their households, said Pritsos, chairman of the nutrition department at UNR.

"This is the first major study ever done looking at exposure to environmental tobacco smoke in the work force," Pritsos said. He added that casino floor workers are exposed to four times the amount of secondhand cigarette and cigar smoke than any other work force population.

... Woodbury is adamant in her view about the dangers of secondhand smoke. "For every eight smokers that die of smoking, they take one nonsmoker with them. Innocent victims like Dana Reeve," she said.

The widow of the late actor and quadriplegic Christopher Reeve died in March of lung cancer.

"She used to perform in smoky nightclubs and now she's dead," Woodbury said. "Only 44 years old, the same age I am."