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Evidence
Bulletin
THOSE 400,000 SMOKING
"VICTIMS" LIVE LONGER THAN THE REST OF US!
Preliminary
reportBy Rosalind B.
Marimont
For years the anti-tobacco
crusaders, from Drs. Koop and Kessler to President Clinton, have claimed
that "cigarette smoking is the greatest cause of preventable or
premature deaths, causing 400,000 deaths a year, a number greater than
auto accidents, homicide, suicide, and various other causes of death
combined."
They have used this statement to brand tobacco public health enemy
number 1, and to justify huge amounts of money, time, and attention to the
war on smoking, while all but ignoring alcohol and drug abuse.
Incredibly, analysis of the ages of the 400K supposed deaths computed
by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) SAMMEC (Smoking Attributable
Mortality, Morbidity and Economic Costs) program shows that tobacco is not
a major health threat at all - the supposed victims did not die early!
- THE SMOKING "VICTIMS" LIVED LONGER THAN THE REST OF US, BY
ABOUT 2 YEARS - 71.9 vs. 70.
- OVER 70,000, or about 17%, DIED "PREMATURELY" AT AGES
GREATER THAN 85.
- ONLY 1900, OR FEWER THAN O.5 % OF THE SMOKING "VICTIMS" DIED
AT AGES LESS THAN 35, WHILE 143.000, OR 8% OF THE REST OF US DIED AT
AGES LESS THAN 35.
If so many of the smoking
victims are old, and so few young, and if, on the average, they live
longer than the rest of us, how are their deaths "premature"? According to
the technical definition used by SAMMEC, any "smoking related" death is
considered premature. There is no upper age limit to the computation.
These astonishing numbers, which totally demolish the main argument of
the anti-smoking movement, are the result of my analysis of the SAMMEC age
distribution computations for the years 1990-1994, provided, at my
request, by the Office of Smoking and Health (OSH) of the CDC. For
comparison with other deaths, I used 1992 mortality statistics of the
National Center for Health Statistics.
On the other hand, the deaths slighted in the 400K statements are
premature. For example, the average ages at death of motor accident
victims was 39, of suicides 45, and of homicide victims 32, compared to 70
for the general population. These non-smoking deaths total about 98000, of
which about 50% are under 35, and are largely alcohol and drug related.
The SAMMEC methodology has been criticized by many epidemiologists,
statisticians, and all purpose general applied mathematicians like me on
technical grounds, which are usually not comprehensible to
non-specialists. But these age numbers are easy to understand - How is
tobacco the number one killer, when its "victims" live longer than the
rest of us?
Rosalind B. Marimont
Contact Rosalind by e-mail
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