CDC director Tom Frieden falsely claims "For every one person who dies from tobacco, 20 are disabled or disfigured or have a disease"

[Bill Godshall]

In press release statement, CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, MD, M.P.H. falsely claims: "For every one person who dies from tobacco, 20 are disabled or disfigured or have a disease that is unpleasant, painful, expensive."
http://www.stategazette.com:80/story/1871303.html

 

[Bill Godshall]

After Joseph Smith from the CDC sent me this news article in an e-mail this morning (with the subject line Today's tobacco News, which was probably in response to my weekly e-mails entitled tobacco Harm Reduction Update, the most recent of which I sent yesterday), I sent the following reply to Mr. Smith pointing out the absurdity of Tom Frieden's statement.


----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Godshall
To: Smith, Joseph (CDC/ONDIEH/NCCDPHP)
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 11:28 AM
Subject: Re: Today's Tobacco News, July 18, 2012

In a press release statement, CDC Director Thomas Frieden said:

"For every one person who dies from tobacco, 20 are disabled or disfigured or have a disease that is unpleasant, painful, expensive."

That is an absurdly inaccurate and irresponsible claim, which should be retracted immediately.

If the CDC believes its claim that cigarette smoking causes 443,000 US deaths annually, Frieden is now claiming that more than 8.86 million Americans are "disabled or disfigured or have a disease that is unpleasant, painful, expensive" EVERY SINGLE YEAR from tobacco, and that more than 350 million Americans have been "disabled or disfigured or have a disease that is unpleasant, painful, expensive" by tobacco during the past forty years.

Except that there are only about 330 million Americans, 70 million tobacco users, and 33 million daily cigarette smokers (according to Census and CDC estimates).

So how can tobacco (or cigarette smoking) disable, disfigure or cause 350 million disabilities, disfigurements or diseases in the US in the past 40 years, or is the CDC now claiming that secondhand smoke has already disabled, disfigured or caused a disease in every nonsmoker in the US?

Besides, many CDC, NCI and US SG reports have consistently stated that cigarette smoking kills about one third of cigarette smokers. So even if smoking disabled, disfigured or caused a disease in the other two thirds of cigarette smokers, that would only account for twice the number of deaths caused by cigarettes. So who accounts for the other 90% of those who are disabled, disfigured or diseased by tobacco?

Another problem with Frieden's statements hclaims are that he fails to distinguish the vast differences in health risks due to different types of tobacco usage, and he tries to confuse the public to believe that all of the many different types of tobacco use are just as hazardous as smoking two or three packs of cigarettes per day.

Bill Godshall
Executive Director
Smokefree Pennsylvania
1926 Monongahela Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15218
412-351-5880
smokefree@compuserve.com

----- Original Message -----
From: Smith, Joseph (CDC/ONDIEH/NCCDPHP)
To: Smith, Joseph (CDC/ONDIEH/NCCDPHP)
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 9:17 AM
Subject: Today's Tobacco News, July 18, 2012

National Media Campaign
Media campaigns encouraging tobacco users to stop
July 17, 2012, Dyersburg State Gazette


National Media Campaign
Media campaigns encouraging tobacco users to stop

July 17, 2012, Dyersburg State Gazette (Tennessee)

Last fall the Food and Drug Administration began requiring tobacco industries to incorporate graphic images on all cigarette packs. The requirement, which was part of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act signed into law by President Barack Obama in June 2009, forces tobacco industries to have the graphic warning labels on at least 50 percent of the cigarette packaging by September 2012.

It turns out the FDA is not the only federal agency using graphic images, as the Centers for Disease Control launched its Tips from Former Smokers Campaign in March and has reported that calls to its quit-smoking hotline have doubled since the ads aired.

The Tips Campaign shares the truth about smoking and the harmful effects of tobacco use through the stories of real people who are currently suffering the effects of their choices. The CDC says that it is using the campaign at the suggestion of the Institute of Medicine, National Cancer Institute and Surgeon General who all recommended that hard-hitting national media campaigns would raise awareness about the dangers of tobacco use and encourage tobacco dependents to quit.

"Although they may be tough to watch, the ads show people living with real, painful consequences from smoking," said CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, MD, M.P.H. in a press release statement. "For every one person who dies from tobacco, 20 are disabled or disfigured or have a disease that is unpleasant, painful, expensive. There is sound evidence that supports these ads - and, based on the increase in calls to 1-800-QUIT-NOW, we're on our way to helping more smokers quit."

According to the CDC, cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States accounting for approximately 443,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. The CDC also estimates that tobacco use costs our nation's economy approximately $200 billion each year ($96 billion in health care costs and an additional $97 billion in lost productivity). Because it is a preventable illness, employers and health insurance providers have begun working together to provide incentives for insurance recipients to quit tobacco use if they are currently addicted.

Locally, the city of Dyersburg began working with its employees on July 1 to assist them in stopping their or their dependent's tobacco use. The city also passed a ban on tobacco use in city facilities, vehicles and equipment. Under the new policies city employees will have between July 1 and Dec. 31 to receive aids that will help them eliminate their dependency on tobacco. On Jan. 1, 2013 city employees will be assessed a $5 surcharge on their health care deductions if they are still using tobacco products.

 

[Petrodus]

What I find a little odd is that we say we are in a war against those opposing harm reduction ...
And "THEY" Lie and just pull false statistics out of the thin air and publish them ... While
we on the other hand, have some kind of unspoken agreement we can only publish scientific
facts.

I've been in war ... Ya fight to win
Ya don't throw rocks at those dropping bombs.

Maybe someone can expand on this a little

 

[DC2]

What I find a little odd is that we say we are in a war against those opposing harm reduction ...
And "THEY" Lie and just pull false statistics out of the thin air and publish them ... While
we on the other hand, have some kind of unspoken agreement we can only publish scientific
facts.

I've been in war ... Ya fight to win
Ya don't throw rocks at those dropping bombs.

Maybe someone can expand on this a little

We are fighting to erode, and hopefully some day destroy their credibility.
Without doing that, we can not win.

And if we start using their tactics, we will very quickly lose our credibility.
Much more quickly and easily than they will ever lose theirs.

And then we will have lost.

JMHO

 

[kristin]

DC2 is right, of course. But I know how you feel, Petrodus!

 

[Fiamma]

Is there a plan to publicly counter this fallacious statement from the CDC ?

 

[jtpjc]

They can't win with their usual tactics anymore. Now they resort to desperate lying.

 

[DC2]

They can't win with their usual tactics anymore. Now they resort to desperate lying.

I think this is very true, and shows the inroads we have made, in spite of our lack of numbers and support.
And a very, very large degree of credit goes to CASAA, who is the David to the Big Pharma Goliath.

They seem to be dropping some of their arguments for fear they are false and stupid, and too easily exposed.
And they are more and more headed towards the "Save the Children" fallback position.

And when you are going to your fallback position, you are already on your way to defeat.
And this is no time to let up on them.

 

[NorthOfAtlanta]

While I have more than once wondered what kind of BS we could spin to get some headlines I finally realized that it would be much easier to just stick to what we can prove and let them dig their own hole and hope they never realize that in order to get out of it first you must put down the shovel. This Doctor has obviously not figured that out. By any chance is he an former Senator or congress critter?

 

[rolygate]

I'm surprised that no one has attacked with this method before, as it seems logical that if [x] number of people die every year from smoking, then 3x, 5x or perhaps more will be affected by some sort of issue.

However there is probably a disconnect between the various figures used, that contributes to the confusion:

• A figure of anywhere between 20% and 50% is seen, for the percentage of smokers who die (eventually) as a result of smoking-related disease. Since the numbers at each end of that scale would probably be hard to support, a figure of 33% might be used as an acceptable average, as there doesn't seem to be any great evidence to support any particular figure (which might vary between countries in any case, as medical care varies).
• A figure of anywhere between 0.6% and 1% is given as the percentage of smokers who die in any given year. Again, the numbers at each end of that scale do not seem to be supportable and this can be seen even by those of us with no access to reliable data on disease types and mortality rates. For example we can see that in areas where the stats are easily obtained such as the UK, the percentage is about 0.7% to 0.8% (we have a reasonable idea of how many smokers there are and how many die each year from smoking-related disease).

So the first thing is that we have two figures to use: 33% and 0.8%. If we were to consider the number of persons affected by disease *in any given year*, it would probably be necessary to use the 0.8% figure.


UK figures
For the UK this might run as follows:

population = ~68 million
smokers = ~20%
20% of 68m = 13.6m
deaths from smoking each year = ~100,000
0.75% of 13.6 = 102,000

So we might say that 0.75% of the UK's smokers die each year; about 100,000 people, as the two figures seem to align (assuming the mortality rate is correctly reported).

If 3 times that number are affected by disease, or 5 times, the numbers would be:

3x = 300,000
5x = 500,000

So if 5 times the number who die have a smoking-related disease or condition, that means 0.5m in the UK.


US figures
If 400,000 a year die in the US, then 5x with a disease = 2 million in any given year.

If someone were to claim that 20x the fatality rate had a disease or medical condition, this would be 8 million people at any one time. [corrected a maths error here]

From a logical perspective, if someone wanted to claim that 5x those who die are suffering from some sort of smoking-related condition, it might be hard to argue against that; but claiming that 20x are sufferers seems to be pushing it. Although on the other hand a 1 in 20 fatality rate from smoking-related disease doesn't seem that hard to accept. A 1 in 5 rate appears quite high.

My maths/stats isn't very good, so there could be anything from serious logic errors to minor arithmetical errors in here; I just wanted to run the numbers for my own satisfaction, and because it seems as if no one else has.

 

[Petrodus]

Rolygate ... Interesting, but a little difficult for me to follow
because of the variables you mentioned.

I'm always leery when hearing anyone quoting statistics.
There are so many variables ... numbers can be crunched
to prove whatever someone wants to prove.

Reminds me of a Mark Twain quote

There are three kinds of lies
Lies, damned lies, and statistics

 

[rolygate]

Just trying to see - by running various numbers - what the claim of 20x the death rate might be in actual figures.

Apparently no one has done this before, so it looked interesting. As Bill G said, the figure of 20x looks a little unrealistic, and I'd love to see something like this run up by someone who knows what they are talking about and is not in the propaganda business.

It seems as if the CDC Director is saying there are 8 million US residents who are seriously ill from cigarette smoking, at any given time. This number seems high; but since he cleverly used a highly ambiguous way of stating his case (common with propaganda), and the total figures for smoking-related illnesses are not easily available, it is not possible to state one way or the other that he is being 'creative'.

I'd certainly agree with you about statistics - they can prove whatever you like. I especially like the one issued by the NHS in the UK that it cost about £300 each per person who successfully quit smoking using the national health services. I have never seen a more egregious lie posing as a 'statistic'. The way they justified it was more creative than Leonardo da Vinci ever was.

 

[MickeyRat]

This is a serious thread and I'm being an ... but, I can't help it. Freiden can still claim to be right. There's nothing in his statement that says that each person damaged in his count is a separate person. He could claim that most of them have been damaged more than once. It makes about as much sense as some of the other health claims I've seen.

 

[Bill Godshall]

I think its possible that cigarettes cause diseases, disabilities or disfigurements in about the same number of people that cigarettes kill annually (i.e. 443,000), and that most of those folks end up being included in the 443,000 folks who die the next year.

But 8.86 million Americans annually is just absurd.

 

[rolygate]

Bill, thanks for pointing out my maths error so gently

If the US population is about 314 million, and 18% smoke, that would be 56.5 million smokers.
20x the death rate per year is 8 million plus.
8 million is therefore about 14% of the smokers, maybe it does sound a little high.

It would be nice to see some real figures for this.