Smoking, Health, and NBC – What did you say?

NBC News on a new study on the health risks of smoking in a report titled “Lifelong smoking reduces life by a decade.” But at many points they failed miserably at providing real data.

At one point they said that smoking triples the chances for a premature death. So if I smoke my risk of premature death goes from some unknown level to a new point at three times that level. Did it go from one chance in a million to three chances in a million or did it go form one chance in ten to three chances in ten? Those are very different outcomes.

They went on to say that having only a few cigarettes a day doubles the chances of dying younger. Again doubles from what level? Give us the data. I’m sure it is in the report.

And finally they went on to say something that likely confused most and provided no real data. The claim was that by stopping smoking by age 40 has the effect of reducing the increased risk of dying by 40 percent. So now I am being told that something that when up by some unspecified amount has now been reduced by 40 percent.

In the end all they really said is that smoking is not good for you. They claimed that they were reprorting on a study that quantified that statement but failed to give any real data.