Do Hobbits get Lung Cancer?

[Mugwump]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Where did you get that statistic of 1000 estimated deaths per year in the US, Mugwump?

The stats given by the American Cancer Society for 2008 read 565,650 deaths from all cancers.

And the cancer risk for pipe smoking includes oral cancers, not just lung cancer.

Sorry, I didn't finish the sentence correctly:

In America, with a population of over 300 million, there are an estimated 1000 or so cancer deaths (all kinds, not just lung cancer) per year among pipe smokers.

That statistic is from a 1996 study published in the journal Preventive Medicine, which estimated that the number of deaths in the United States attributable to pipe smoking in 1991 ranged from 650 to 2,820, the majority from lung cancer, but that number included all types of cancers the pipe smokers died from. The middle estimate was a little more than 1,000 deaths.

By the way, I once tried smoking a pipe. It make my throat so raw and painfull I never tried again.