The Times June 20, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-2232873,00.html
Smoking: get the stats right

Sir, Whether or not there is some danger in exposure to passive smoking, the letter signed by three senior administrators of the medical profession ( June 15) makes an assertion lacking in balance.

“Two employed people are likely to die each working day” equates to fewer than 500 people even likely to die a year. The yearly UK death rate is more than 600,000.

A responsible House of Lords committee has committed itself to the assertion that the public smoking ban is based on bad science. To refute that, James Johnson must produce statistics that show that the number of death certificates giving the cause of death as “passive smoking” is even within thousands of those attributed to inadequate hospital hygiene and botched medical practice. Until then may I suggest that he rethinks his priorities.

J. V. CARTER
Berkhamsted, Herts