alt Hacker NewsI would expect it to be the other way around.
If nearly everyone smoked, then even nonsmokers were constantly getting a fair amount of secondhand smoke.
This would raise the background rate of cancer, making it appear that smoking raises your risk by less than it actually does.
Replies
paulpauper • yesterday at 9:17 PM
this agrees with my point because non-smoker are being counted in cancer risk. we're only interested in people who choose to smoke. public smoking bans make secondhand smoke less risky/relevant as a factor. we're only interested in the risk , independent of secondhand smoke, of someone choosing to smoke getting cancer.
Non smokers did get lung cancer [0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Castle#Illness_and_death