  Statements for public health purposes such as "1 in 2 will get cancer by age
85" have appeared in public spaces. The meaning drawn from such statements
affects economic welfare, not just public health. Both markets and government
use risk information on all kinds of risks, useful information can, in turn,
improve economic welfare, however inaccuracy can lower it. We adapt the
contingency table approach so that a quoted risk is cross-classified with the
states of nature. We show that bureaucratic objective functions regarding the
accuracy of a reported cancer risk can then be stated.
