Smoking Kills

Tobacco smoking has been fingered (e.g., U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare [U.S. DHEW], 1964) as a major cause of mortality and morbidity, responsible for an estimated 434,000 deaths per year in the United States (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 1991a).

But, did you know that the so much publicized 400,000+ "smoking-related' deaths in the US simply does not exist?

That number is a heavily slanted, politically manipulated estimate using a computer model programmed with the assumptions of causality in synergy with the current political agenda against tobacco.

It DOES NOT represent an actual bodycount.

Some claim that about 10 million people in the United States have died from causes attributed to smoking (including heart disease, emphysema, and other respiratory diseases) since the first Surgeon General's report on smoking and health in 1964 with 2 million of these deaths the result of lung cancer alone. In fact, they like to say that "Cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States."

They declare one in every five deaths in the United States is smoking related. Every year, smoking kills more than 276,000 men and 142,000 women. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smoking-attributable mortality and years of potential life lost--United States, 1990. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 1993;42(33):645-8.)

How do they explain why non-smokers (75% of heart disease deaths) die from heart disease?