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Indemnity4 t1_j98ec6u wrote

Reply to comment by darthaxolotl in Can doctors tell when cancer is caused by something specific, such as smoking or chemicals? by [deleted]

Statistics are great fun!

About 20% of the lung cancer deaths in the USA are non-smokers, or ~7000 people a year.

While lots of people know about smoking=cancer, most don't know about smoking=COPD or heart disease. Cancer sure is up there as the scariest, but it's not the thing that will probably kill you.

Crudely, very roughly taking those numbers: smokers are ONLY 4X more likely to die from lung cancer than general population. That's, surprisingly not that much higher. There are way riskier activities such as SCUBA diving or living near a busy road.

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