There are two adverts I keep hearing at the moment. I think the combination of the two might be harmful to health.

The first says:

One in two people will get cancer in their lifetime.

The second says:

One in two smokers will die of a smoking-related disease.

I wouldn’t quarrel with either of those statements. However, I think hearing both might lead people to underestimate the risks associated with smoking. I think people think “cancer = death” and that “a smoking related disease = cancer”. They may therefore—completely inaccurately—conclude that smoking doesn’t change the risk of death all that much.

Of course, not all cancers are life-shortening—indeed, many don’t even warrant treatment, and many require only a one-off minor procedure.

Of course, there are many life-shortening smoking-related illnesses which aren’t cancers.

I worry, though, that people will just compare “one in two” with—well—“one in two.” That wouldn’t be helpful.

The picture at the top of this post is an AI-generated image created by OpenAI’s DALL-E 2.