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MOSI Body Worlds Exhibit Shows Results Of Smoking

Associated Press

The Body Worlds exhibit at the Museum of Science & Industry includes its own smoking-education element: the black lung display.

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By MARY SHEDDEN

mshedden@tampatrib.com

Published: March 25, 2009

TAMPA - Fifty years ago, Gary Brya smoked at social occasions and for fun. That's what almost everyone he knew did.

Today it's a different story. Education campaigns tout smoking's link to lung cancer, the deadliest type of malignant tumor. It's responsible for 3 million deaths a year worldwide.

"There was no education or anything that said it was harmful," said Brya, a 64-year-old Michigan resident attending the Body Worlds exhibit at the Museum of Science & Industry on Tuesday.

The exhibit includes its own smoking-education element: the black lung display.

Brya and other seniors at MOSI on Tuesday said they don't know how any young person exposed to this information could start smoking.

"I don't think they understand the seriousness of this yet," said Canadian visitor Pat Howson, 65.

The exhibit features a healthy set of lungs next to a smoker's, which are coal black. It brought Spring Hill resident Ann Gerstmer to tears.

She was overwhelmed by memories of her father and first husband, both of whom were heavy smokers who died in their 50s. Her father was a four-pack-a-day smoker who never quit.

"I saw my father slowly suffocate to death from the effects of lung cancer," said Gerstmer, 63.

She said she was glad she came to the exhibit with her 26-year-old daughter, a smoker who quit two months ago. "Every young person should see this," she said.

The black lung is part of a 17,000-square-foot exhibit of organs, body slices and whole bodies representing 200 human specimens, but it's the only portion dedicated to changing unhealthy behavior.

Though the large cadavers posed in dynamic positions are the eye-catching part of the show, many visitors stop and grow silent at the black lungs.

The American Cancer Society teamed up with the traveling show in 2006 for the "I Quit" campaign and provides pledge cards and local information to people who want to stop smoking. A video loop at the display shows a plea from late actor Yul Brynner, who died from lung cancer in 1985. Taped just before his death, he urges anyone who smokes to quit.

The people who most need to hear the message are young adults, who unfortunately think they're immune to health risks, said Dorothy Follette, 82, of Michigan.

"I feel bad when they say that they show slides and pictures and kids say, 'It won't happen to me.'"

Reporter Mary Shedden can be reached at (813)259-7365.

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