Tobacco.org

• Smoking study capped Caesars dealer’s long, lonely fight  

Terrie Price, a dealer at Caesars Palace for 25 years, was fired in 2005. She has filed a lawsuit against the company.

During the 25 years she worked as a Caesars Palace dealer, Terrie Price was one of a few vocal anti-smoking dissenters among thousands of largely silent casino workers. Price believes her efforts to force her employer to address secondhand smoke, even as a growing body of scientific research chronicled its dangers, cost her that job.

The release last week of the first federal study detailing the effects of secondhand smoke on Las Vegas casino employees — a study Price requested — vindicated those efforts, Price said.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health tracked more than 100 dealers at Bally’s, Paris Las Vegas and Caesars Palace during on-site visits in 2005 and 2006. Researchers found the dealers were exposed to airborne chemicals associated with secondhand smoke during their shifts, had increased levels of tobacco-specific carcinogens in their urine after their shifts, and reported a host of respiratory problems potentially triggered by workplace smoke.

“We’ve been waiting a long time for this,” said Price, 53.

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