
The history of “How to Lie with Smoking Statistics” (2014) - nkurz
https://www.refsmmat.com/articles/smoking-statistics.html
======
auto
One of my favorite movie lines of all time is Aaron Eckhart’s (who plays a
lobbyist for the tobacco industry) line at the beginning of “Thank You For
Smoking” where he introduces the doctor:

“This is the man they rely on—Erhardt Von Grupten Mundt. They found him in
Germany; I won't go into the details. He's been testing the link between
nicotine and lung cancer for thirty years, and hasn't found any conclusive
results. The man's a genius—he could disprove gravity.”

~~~
mruts
Is there an established link between nicotine and (lung) cancer? I wasn't
aware of one. Of course there is an established link between tobacco use and
lung cancer, but that's an entirely different thing.

Of the studies that I've seen, nicotine actually is quite healthy and has many
upsides: increased working memory and recall, preventive against dementia and
parkinson's, and a mild mood stabilizer/anti-psychotic.

~~~
gwbas1c
Nicotine is extremely addictive. This is what we're learning with vaping.

And seriously, if you've ever smoked 2-3 packs of cigarettes and get weird
desires to have a cigarette, you've experienced nicotine's addicting
qualities. It's so subtle at first that most people just don't realize they're
addicted.

------
mruts
How to Lie with Statistics is such a great book. It's amazing how relevant it
is seeing it's over 60 years old. The same lies that were being told then are
being told today with statistics.

~~~
amoorthy
Thanks for the suggestion! Just reserved at my library to read after skimming
a few pages online.

Somewhat related, there's a great article in Mental Floss on the scientist who
helped get rid of leaded fuel despite the industry's "scientific" pushback.
Wonderful read. [http://mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-
scienti...](http://mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-scientist-
who-determined-age-earth-and-then-saved-it)

~~~
scrollaway
Seconding the recommendation. One of the most impactful books you can read for
yourself. It's such a short and easy read, too (few hours; you can finish it
within a day even if you're slow).

------
carlmr
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends
upon his not understanding it." \- Upton Sinclair

------
Kurtz79
I was wondering as to why it was never published.

From the linked article:

"There are many possible explanations for the sudden demise of Huff’s book.
The industry realized in 1968 that it had a credibility problem: the public
was unlikely to trust a book funded and promoted by the Tobacco Institute.
Perhaps the campaign was shelved after Tiderock closed up shop. Perhaps it was
too late—some tobacco regulations had already been passed, others were
inevitable, and new tactics were needed. Or perhaps the thought of legal
trouble made them retract their offer to advertise the book, making Macmillan
kill the project. But Macmillan was on the brink of signing a contract with
Huff. Did they have second thoughts, or was Huff told to kill the project? Or
were the Tiderock consultants correct in their assessment that “this mass of
verbiage needs drastic editing” and was unpublishable without serious
revision? The Documents Library offers no clues. Only documents produced or
received by the industry are included, so any correspondence between Huff and
Macmillan may not appear. Andrew Gelman, professor of statistics at Columbia
University, reviewed the ethics of Huff’s involvement with the industry and
suggested Huff could have intentionally killed the project to save his own
reputation, which would have been destroyed by his association with tobacco.2
But just a few months before the book’s demise he had been fighting for a
prestigious hardcover and better royalties. Whatever the reasons, How to Lie
with Smoking Statistics went unpublished, protecting its better-known sibling
How to Lie with Statistics from guilt by association."

Would the original book have commanded the same respect, if associated with
another which would bascially be an example of what the first was meaning to
expose?

------
usgroup
Oh man ... how deeply disappointing.

~~~
jackfrodo
It's really insidious, to publish a book that establishes you as an
intelligent truth teller, standing up to what marketers and profiteers want
you to believe, and then use that success to shill for the worst consumer
facing industry of the century.

~~~
carlmr
Everybody needs money.

------
bibyte
Here is another great article about statistics that was posted a few days ago.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19278839](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19278839)

------
a2tech
I wonder what his book would look like if published today. Would he still find
big problems with the smoking studies?

~~~
Arnt
I doubt it. Finding problems in e.g. a small-sample, 22-month study is one
thing, finding problems in studies that cover entire nations over several
decades is quite another.

~~~
vectorEQ
point to 1 such study on smoking, where they did actual measurements on an
entire nation. i bet you they just sampled a subset and called it
statistically sound. ;D

~~~
Arnt
Can't. I heard that when I was a conscientous objector at the university
hospital in Trondheim, Norway. One of the physicians there told me that they'd
done statistics on all patients. Norway has a single-payer system, so that
would really be all patients. But it's a while ago and I can't find email
addresses for anyone whose name I still remember, so I can't.

~~~
vectorEQ
all patients and 'nation' seems a bit overconfident of said doctor (even
though i respect their work a lot!)... i guess his world IS the hospital
patients but vice versa i think the world or a nation includes (a lot) more
than its hospital patients.

~~~
Arnt
So I looked, starting at fhi.no, and found quickly found several studies that
use data based on either the Norwegian cancer registry, the cause-of-death
registry or both.

These aren't samples. The cause of death registry includes all deaths and the
cancer registry includes everyone who's been diagnosed with cancer, even
people who received no treatment. This means that studies that investigate
e.g. cancer caused by smoking and use these data sources are nationwide rather
than sampled.

------
adrianN
What's the copyright status of this work?

~~~
capnrefsmmat
Of the article, or _How to Lie with Smoking Statistics_?

The article is sadly owned by the journal, which does allow authors to post
pre-prints on their personal sites.

The book I'm not so sure about. I spent some time researching the copyright
status back when I wrote the article, and the results were confusing. I don't
think Huff ever registered copyright for _How to Lie with Smoking Statistics_
, which was required at the time, but unpublished works were protected, and
when the copyright system changed in the 70s unpublished works were given some
statutory protections. The book only became public because of the Tobacco
Master Settlement Agreement, which I haven't read but presumably sets some
conditions on the documents it makes public.

In the end I decided it was safest to link to the Tobacco Documents Library,
though I was very tempted to typeset a new edition of the book so we could
enjoy an example of corporate propaganda.

