There is an actual calculator online that can (supposedly) determine your risk for lung cancer. Here it is:

http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/12463.cfm

(You have to scroll down to "Use the Lung Cancer Assessment tool Online")

I invite you to MAX-0UT the calculator. You'll notice that the calculator assumes that you won't live long enought to fit some of its numbers. If you max-out the calendar, if you've smoked 3 packs a day for 55 years, you have a 14% chance of developing lung cancer.

That is if you quit. If you don't, you have an 18% chance of developing lung cancer.

I suggest that you pay special attention to this calculator while it exists, because it is likely to drastically change its numbers as special interest groups are likely to become aware of it and apply pressure. (BTW, this is the "science" that you are supposedly living in denial of.)

In the U.S. approximately 160,000 people die each year from lung cancer, with about 145,000 of them being smokers or former smokers. In reality, only about 10% of smokers ever get lung cancer, but this accounts for 90% of all lung cancer deaths. (It should be noted that a lung cancer diagnosis is approximately a five year death sentence, in probably 90% of cases).

In truth, in terms of statistics, you will probably not ever get lung cancer. The longer you live, the more likely you are to die, and if you've been a lifelong smoker, you're more likely to die of lung cancer.

(Conversely, the longer you live, the more likely you are to live longer. For instance, if you are currently age, 70 you have a much better chance of making it to 80 than I currently do being under age 40. Such is the manipulative nature of statistics.)

All of us of course, here, there, and everywhere, are eventually going to expire. That's just the way it is.

As the number of smokers are reduced then it would follow that the percentage of non-smokers developing lung cancer will increase.

Statistically it is likely that most deaths in this country have smoked at least once in their lifetime, much the same as the number who consumed water.

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce:
As the number of smokers are reduced then it would follow that the percentage of non-smokers developing lung cancer will increase.

This would also explain the idiotic claims from some Anti's that "secondhand smoke is worse than direct smoking," since we all know that nonsmokers' lung cancers will be blamed on shs. Look to see the "estimated" lung cancer deaths from shs to increase tenfold in a few years. Never mind that the logic is akin to claiming that it's safer to jump out of an airplane without a parachute rather than with one.....