Rejoinder: the perils of Viscusi's analyses of smoking risk perceptions

Kip Viscusi rejects my critique of his work and restates his view that individuals greatly overestimate the risks from lung cancer and other diseases caused by smoking. But Viscusi's methods are deeply flawed and his analyses, arguments, and conclusions are incorrect. First, he neglects to take into account optimism bias, which leads smokers to believe that they personally are at less risk than other smokers. Second, he fails to demonstrate that smokers appreciate the cumulative nature of smoking risks and the power of addiction that makes it extraordinarily difficult for them to stop smoking when their preferences change and they desire to quit. Third, the quantitative judgments of risk that Viscusi relies upon are so highly determined by methodological biases as to be completely unreliable. A substantial body of evidence supports the conclusion, contrary to Viscusi's, that many young people do not adequately appreciate the risks of smoking. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.