Calculating the 'Big Kill'

In 1985, the British Medical Association and Health Education Council published The Big Kill, a series of booklets estimating the number of people killed by smoking in England and Wales. Assigning a “precise” number of deaths to a risky behavior provided opponents with a powerful and often persuasive weapon. For two decades, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has regularly produced an American version of the booklets. The CDC tallies (estimates, actually) are available on the Internet, where visitors can also review other consequences of smoking such as years of life lost, medical expenditures, and productivity losses.