I saw an advertisement selling term insurance. The monthly premium was Rs 500 or so. There was a question: do you smoke? You could press a button saying yes and find how the premium would change because of this information. I pressed the button though I am not a smoker to see the cost of this habit. The premium went up to Rs 800!
I did not store a link to that advertisement. But
searched the web again for the connection between disease and smoking, and found
this:
The article shows causes of death in percentage terms and
lists main causes. In some cases, it advises on prevention, by asking you not
to smoke or “to avoid consuming tobacco”. The numbers are as follows:
Disease Listed
Main Cause Listed Prevention Method
Cardiovascular Diseases 24.8% Avoid Consumption of tobacco
Respiratory Diseases 10.2% Avoid Smoking
Malignant & other tumours 9.4% Avoid Tobacco Usage
Digestive Diseases 5.1% Quit smoking and avoid alcohol
Tuberculosis
10.1%
However, WHO says A Strong Association is: Smoking
substantially increases the risk of TB and death from TB. https://www.who.int/tobacco/resources/publications/factsheet_tb_tobacco_sep09.pdf
How dangerous is Covid-19 compared to the Tobacco
Epidemic? Confirmed Deaths due to Covid-19 as of 9-Aug-2020 have been 43,379.
The total number of deaths in India per year is approximately 95 Lakhs according
to Wikipedia.
Srinivasan Ramani
