Leona: If the average consumption of eggs in the United States were cut in half, an estimated 5, 000 lives might be saved each year. Thomas: How can that be? That would mean that if people adopt this single change in diet for ten years, the population ten years from now will be greater by 50, 000 people than it otherwise would have been.
It is accurate to say that 5,000 lives have been saved as long as 5,000 people who would have died in a given year as a result of not changing their diet, did not do so -- even if they died for some other reason is a statement that Leona could offer Thomas to clarify her own claim and to address the point he has made.