The CDC makes each of the following claims on its various tobacco/smoking "fact" sheets:
1) Smoking kills 50% of everyone who does it habitually, at any point in their lives.
2) Smoking kills 480,000 Americans each year.
3) In 1965, 52.1% of American adults were smokers.
According to the US Census Bureau, the national population in 1965 was 194.3 million, of whom 69.7 million were under age 18. This yields an adult population of 124.6 million and, per the CDC estimate, a smoking population of 64.9 million.
This means, according to the CDC, that 32.45 million people who were smoking in 1965 can be expected to have died from smoking-related illness and disease. Since nearly half a century has elapsed between then and now, we can reasonably assume that all, or virtually all, smoking deaths among 1965 smokers would have happened already.
Here's where it starts getting hilarious. Even if we disregard anyone who started smoking after 1965, we still have 32.45 million purported smoking deaths to account for. If we (quite generously) allow for a constant death rate over the subsequent 50 years up to the present day, this requires 649,000 smoking-related deaths each and every year, among 1965 smokers alone. Obviously, the CDC's oft-quoted figure of 480,000 smoking-related deaths per year (which itself relies on the absurd presumption that anyone who dies and ever smoked was killed by smoking) is nowhere near sufficient to account for all the 1965 smokers who should have died from smoking, much less any individuals who started smoking post-1965 and ultimately died because of it. A discrepancy of 169,000 deaths per year exists between 1) the number of 1965 smokers who should have been killed by smoking according to the CDC, and 2) the total number of smokers who die from smoking each year according to the CDC. These people invent lies in such a cavalier fashion that they can't even be bothered checking to see if the arithmetic holds up.
Conclusion: when subjected to the slightest amount of reasonable scrutiny, the CDC's numbers on smoking-related mortality completely fall apart. They wouldn't add up even if no American ever started smoking after 1965. These numbers are constantly regurgitated (even by some vapers) as though they are unassailable gospel truth. But they are nonsense. They are made up. They are fictional. No self-respecting person with a functional intellect should take them seriously, or use them as the basis for any credible argument.
1) Smoking kills 50% of everyone who does it habitually, at any point in their lives.
2) Smoking kills 480,000 Americans each year.
3) In 1965, 52.1% of American adults were smokers.
According to the US Census Bureau, the national population in 1965 was 194.3 million, of whom 69.7 million were under age 18. This yields an adult population of 124.6 million and, per the CDC estimate, a smoking population of 64.9 million.
This means, according to the CDC, that 32.45 million people who were smoking in 1965 can be expected to have died from smoking-related illness and disease. Since nearly half a century has elapsed between then and now, we can reasonably assume that all, or virtually all, smoking deaths among 1965 smokers would have happened already.
Here's where it starts getting hilarious. Even if we disregard anyone who started smoking after 1965, we still have 32.45 million purported smoking deaths to account for. If we (quite generously) allow for a constant death rate over the subsequent 50 years up to the present day, this requires 649,000 smoking-related deaths each and every year, among 1965 smokers alone. Obviously, the CDC's oft-quoted figure of 480,000 smoking-related deaths per year (which itself relies on the absurd presumption that anyone who dies and ever smoked was killed by smoking) is nowhere near sufficient to account for all the 1965 smokers who should have died from smoking, much less any individuals who started smoking post-1965 and ultimately died because of it. A discrepancy of 169,000 deaths per year exists between 1) the number of 1965 smokers who should have been killed by smoking according to the CDC, and 2) the total number of smokers who die from smoking each year according to the CDC. These people invent lies in such a cavalier fashion that they can't even be bothered checking to see if the arithmetic holds up.
Conclusion: when subjected to the slightest amount of reasonable scrutiny, the CDC's numbers on smoking-related mortality completely fall apart. They wouldn't add up even if no American ever started smoking after 1965. These numbers are constantly regurgitated (even by some vapers) as though they are unassailable gospel truth. But they are nonsense. They are made up. They are fictional. No self-respecting person with a functional intellect should take them seriously, or use them as the basis for any credible argument.
This was a good section of the study:
