> It doesn't do us any good calling everything in the world a carcinogen

I think it would help tremendously if we started expressing everything in terms of Disability-adjusted life years[1] lost. So instead of "Drinking hot tea causes cancer!", the headline would read "Drinking hot tea causes you to lose an average 20 minutes of disability-adjusted life expectancy". A lot less scary, and a lot easier to compare with other things.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disability-adjusted_life_year