Letters to the editor

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Dylan Ferguson and “The right to light”

Although I thoroughly enjoyed your article, “Th e right to light” (Jan. 10) I strongly disagree with a portion of it. When comparing fi gures of government revenue from smoking taxation to health-care costs brought on by smokers, you used a very outdated statistic that came from a single study. Health-care costs would be much more accurate if measured today, taking into eff ect secondhand smoking, especially when considering pregnant mothers and child exposure.

Medical research has come a long way since then, although even now one still would not be able to fully grasp the health-care costs because it is so diffi cult to measure the short-term and long-term, known and unknown eff ects. You might argue that since taxes have been raised signifi cantly since then, helping to balance the new found costs to health care. To this I would reply that the ratio of public health costs to the revenues from taxation on tobacco is much more signifi cant than your article made it appear. I may be preaching to the converted, but I just wanted to point out this important point. Since you were honest enough to admit you are a smoker, I’ll admit that I am not.

Again, congrats on the great article.

Pawel Utko