Lung Cancer

Is food packaging compromising the effectiveness of your child's vaccines? A recent Harvard School of Public Health study suggesting that it might be has rocked parents and pediatricians nationwide. The study looked at PFCs - perfluorinated compounds - a group of chemicals that are used in many kinds of food packaging. They're useful because they resist heat, oil, stains, grease, and water. They keep the microwave popcorn inside the bag and the pizza cheese inside the box instead of leaking out and staining your car seat.

Penn State's athletic department will pay much of the cost for the memorial services and public viewings for Joe Paterno, a school spokesman confirmed, with the university paying the remainder. An initial estimate is expected to be available Friday after tabulations are made by departments across the campus, such as the police and physical plant. The Paterno family will pay for the cost of the funeral, said Jeff Nelson, the assistant director for athletic communications.

STATE COLLEGE - It's almost as if Joe Paterno were speaking from beyond the grave, even if the 85-year-old former Penn State coaching icon, who died Sunday of complications from lung cancer, has yet to be interred. The private burial won't take place until this afternoon in this college town he so came to love. But for those not among the select few family members and close friends who can gain entry to the cemetery, there were public viewings yesterday and this morning at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on campus.

AL GOLDEN played for Joe Paterno at Penn State and also coached next to him. Golden's memories of the legendary Paterno are fond and the lessons he learned remain. Paterno, 85, died Sunday of lung cancer. "Walter Payton once said, 'Always remember that every opportunity you have to meet someone is an opportunity to leave a piece of yourself,' " Golden, the University of Miami coach, said in a statement. "Joe Paterno not only fulfilled a promise he made to his father by making an impact, he left an indelible piece of himself with everyone he touched.

Penn State football coach Joe Paterno's swift decline after his lung cancer diagnosis may not be as surprising as the type of cancer that killed him, according to an oncologist who specializes in treating the disease. The storied coach, who was 85, died Sunday, just 65 days after his son Scott said he had been diagnosed with a "treatable" lung cancer. Mount Nittany Medical Center said Paterno, a nonsmoker, died of "metastatic small-cell carcinoma of the lung," an aggressive cancer that had spread beyond the lung.

Former Penn State head coach Joe Paterno, 85, his body ravaged by chemotherapy and radiation treatments for lung cancer, died early Sunday morning at Mount Nittany Medical Center in State College. His family released a statement early Sunday morning to announce his death, the Associated Press reported. The Penn State Board of Trustees and President Rodney Erickson issued the following statement: "We grieve for the loss of Joe Paterno, a great man who made us a greater university.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - On the night that Joe Paterno was fired in his 46th season as Penn State's head football coach, Matt McGloin, the team's quarterback, felt compelled to go to the Paterno home and make sure the coach was all right. "My heart was pounding. I was nervous that they weren't going to let me in," McGloin recalled Sunday night as students, parents and alumni attended a candlelight vigil in front of Old Main on campus to honor the memory of Paterno, who died of lung cancer earlier in the day. "As we sat on the couch, it was Coach Joe and Mrs. Paterno.

Did the hammer blow to Joe Paterno's lifelong legacy hasten his death? At least one national expert on aging said Paterno's firing as football coach at Pennsylvania State University, and the accusation that he should have done more to prevent a sex-abuse scandal, could have diminished his will to live. "When you feel that you've lost your place in this world, death is never far behind," said Bill Thomas, a Harvard University-trained geriatrician and a pioneer in improving the quality of life for the frail elderly.

For the first time in months, there was little talk of the child-sex-abuse scandal that cost him his job and plunged the school he embodied into one of the darkest chapters in its history. Instead, Joe Paterno's death Sunday unleashed an outpouring of condolences and fond memories. From Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, from Harrisburg to Happy Valley, across state borders and the sports spectrum, fans, friends, and admirers recalled the Paterno of legend: the short, bespectacled coach who for decades kept the same middle-class house in State College, donned the same outfit each week on the Beaver Stadium sidelines, and preached the same mantras about football and life even as he transcended Pennsylvania State University and became a gridiron giant.

When time does what it does, and the full measure is taken, Joe Paterno's legacy will be a fine and remarkable thing. It will be very close to what the great man hoped and dreamed during his decades as a college professor whose discipline happened to be football.  Paterno was a winner, on the field and in almost every area that mattered. He was not perfect, which was true before the terrible Jerry Sandusky story broke. That dreadful scandal may have robbed Paterno of the appropriate end to his coaching career, and almost certainly sped up the end of his life, but it will not ultimately rob him of his reputation.