According to the British Heart Foundation, air pollution in worst hit areas in the UK is, on average, ‘as deadly’ as smoking over 150 cigarettes each year.
Based on the BHF ‘analysis’, air quality in North Kent offers an ‘increased risk of death equivalent to smoking more than 140 cigarettes a year’, while in parts of urban inner city London the analogy rises to almost 160 cigarettes a year.
I’ve no idea how they reached these figures but by conflating air quality with smoking, and using words such as ‘deadly’ and ‘increased risk of death’, the BHF has managed to achieve an impressive double whammy, simultaneously spreading fear about (a) air pollution and (b) smoking even a relatively small number of cigarettes.
What no-one seems to be asking is, how harmful is smoking 140-160 cigarettes a year? Is it really ‘deadly’? Yes, it may increase one’s risk of ill health, even premature death, but I’m willing to bet the increased risk is very small.
Let’s take the upper figure (160 cigarettes a year). That amounts to fewer than one cigarette every two days, or three cigarettes a week.
A generation of post war baby boomers smoked 20, 30 or even 40 cigarettes a day for years if not decades and, while I don’t dispute the serious health risks associated with that level of consumption, millions did not die as a result of their habit.
A 20-a-day smoker would have smoked 7,300 cigarettes a year and, even if you believe those who say smoking kills half of all long-term consumers, that still leaves millions for whom smoking was not a deadly habit.
Despite that we are led to believe that smoking a fraction of that number (two per cent) is also a ‘deadly’ risk. This in turn is equated to air pollution and the ‘increased risk of death’ of living in certain areas.
Prompted by the BHF’s spin on its own analysis, this week’s reports tell a different story, but common sense suggests that the risk of death from smoking fewer than three cigarettes a week must be tiny.
It follows, then, that the increased risk of death from living in even our most polluted areas must also be very small. That however isn’t an angle the media would be interested in.
The BHF knows this, hence the fearmongering - or lack of perspective - in their own report ( Air pollution in worst hit areas as deadly as smoking over 150 cigarettes each year).
Sadly this is par for the course these days and public health campaigners are masters at it. Pity the media chooses to play their game.