Is smoking as deadly as you think? A research methods perspective

During the recent tobacco wars between the US cigarette industry and antismoking groups, estimates of the public health dangers attributable to domestic cigarette consumption played a pivotal role in persuading government officials and consumers to support regulatory restrictions. Antismoking persons generally argue that cigarettes are high in risk and low in benefits and may support this stereotype by pointing to the US surgeon general's (1989) estimate of attributable risk that over 400,000 American adults die annually from smoking-related diseases. However, most people are unaware of the statistical calculations behind these estimates. The Doll–Peto population-attributable-risk (PAR) results dominated Business Week's (1982) coverage of the tobacco wars.