Who Is Telling Me This? A Five-Minute Check for Any Health Number

In 1969, a tobacco company wrote in an internal proposal that "doubt is our product." The goal wasn't to prove cigarettes were safe. It was to keep the question open long enough to keep selling. Numbers were one of the best tools for the job.

Numbers can reveal the truth or hide it. The difference is often whose hands they're in. Here's a simple check you can run on any health claim, in about five minutes.

Step 1: Write down the claim

Copy the exact words. "Clinically proven." "Reduces risk by 50 percent." "Doctors recommend." Vague words are part of the message, so keep them.

Step 2: Ask who is telling you

- A company selling the product?

- A news story summarizing someone else's study?

- A practitioner, a friend, a social media post?

None of these is automatically wrong. But each has its own reasons for wanting you to believe.

Step 3: Ask who paid

Look for the words "funded by," "sponsored by," or "conflicts of interest" at the end of the article or study summary. If you can't find them, write that down too. Funding doesn't make a study false. It's simply a fact you deserve to know.

Step 4: Find the real numbers

Look past the percentage for the counts.

- How many people were studied?

- How many had the problem in each group?

- Out of 100, how many people does the difference actually change?

If a risk drops from 2 in 100 to 1 in 100, a headline can say it was "cut in half." It's also one person out of a hundred.

Step 5: Ask what they'd gain

If you believed this claim completely, what would you do next? Buy something? Start something? Stop something? Then ask who benefits from that choice.

What honest numbers look like

As you practice, you'll start to notice the difference. Honest numbers tend to:

- Show their counts, not just percentages

- Tell you who paid

- Compare fairly, and say compared with what

- Admit their limits

- Hold up when other people, using other methods, check them

A claim that hides its counts, hides its funding and admits no weakness deserves a harder look.

Your own record counts too

The most trustworthy numbers in your life may be the ones you keep yourself. Your sleep, your energy, your symptoms, written down day by day. No one can ghostwrite them, and no one is paid to frame them.

A practice for today

Pick one health claim you've seen this week. Run the five steps. Write a one-line verdict: "Earned my trust," "Not yet," or "Needs a closer look."

Words to Carry

- I can ask, "Who is telling me this?"

- I look for who paid.

- A percentage means little until I know "out of how many."

- I don't trust every number, and I don't dismiss every number.

- I look behind the number.

With you every step of the way,

Dr. Jocelyn

References

Brown & Williamson. (1969). Smoking and health proposal [Internal document]. SourceWatch. https://sourcewatch.org/index.php/Smoking_and_Health_Proposal