Does smoking kill? A study of death certification and smoking.

A MEDLINE abstract of an article from J Clin Pathol, a British pathology journal reveals an interesting contrast between reporting smoking as an underlying cause of death versus reporting alcohol abuse as an underlying cause of death. Apparently the people who fill out death certificates seldom if ever mention smoking in the "cause" sequence, but over 50% of the time in the case of alcohol abuse.

More evidence that medicine is more of an art form than a science-based practice.