Pam Laffin 's story. Here is one TV spot. Pam died on october 31, 2000. An interview (pdf format) The campaign explained by Greg Conno...
When she was 21, Laffin developed chronic bronchitis. She came down with the condition four times that year, and began to suffer from bronchial asthma as well. When she was 23, Laffin was diagnosed with chronic asthma; the following year, with emphysema.
Laffin did quit. Unfortunately, it was too late. She underwent a lung transplant a year later, but her body rejected the donor organ.
Laffin found the largest audience of her life when the Massachusetts Department of Public Health recruited her for a series of TV commercials in the mid-'90s. In these spots she displayed her trademark naked honesty. She allowed a crew to film her bronchoscopy. She revealed the scars that surgery had left across her back. She looked into the camera and spoke about the ways in which her body had been deformed, how emphysema had left her with "a fat face" and "a lump on my neck."