Epic fail from The Department Of FakeStatistics

Smoking disease costs NHS £5bn, blares the BBC dutifully.

"Smoking costs the NHS five times as much as previously thought, researchers have calculated."

Nope. Last October, they claimed that "Treating smokers costs the NHS in England £2.7bn a year", so I make that 'slightly less than twice as much as previously claimed'; MiniTrue forgot to revise the previous estimate downwards first!

"In 2005, smoking accounted for almost one in five of all deaths and a significant amount of disability, the Oxford University team said."

Oo-er! As AEC points out, " Pile the numbers up, one in four smoke and only one in five die from it, back to the abacus and find some more, there is work to be done."

To be fair, they admit that " The figure of £5bn in 2005-06 equates to 5.5% of the entire NHS budget", which ain't much of a headline, and they allow a spokesman from Forest to point out that:

... the figure in the report was a guesstimate, and should be treated with contempt. Mr Clark said it was preposterous to suggest that the cost of smoking to the NHS had risen dramatically, as smoking rates had been falling for 50 years. He said: "Even if it was [sic] true, smokers still contribute twice that amount to the Treasury in tobacco taxation and VAT. Far from being a burden on society, smokers make an enormous financial contribution."

Finally, The Righteous claim that "This annual cost is still likely to be an underestimate, they say, because it does not include indirect costs, such as lost productivity and informal care, the costs of treating disease caused by passive smoking, or the full range of conditions associated with smoking."

OK, if we're going to factor in other costs, how about factoring other savings, being primarily the £12 billion in state pensions that smokers don't claim because they die younger (bullet point 3 here)?

NB - The British Heart Foundation received £4,266,000 of taxpayer's money in 2008, (note 5, page 44 to their accounts)