Have the Naysayers Finally Been Proven Wrong?

Research has come very close to proving what many vapers have long been saying is true - use of vaping devices does help smokers quit. But, you might have been convinced already by the knee-jerk reactions in mass media professing that e-cigarettes must be some kind of health threat, and which have so enthusiastically reported on findings wherever theoretically possible that can support an anti-vaping position. The worst of these cases of misrepresenting studies is probably in the claim that e-cig use does not help people quit. A few studies, but not all studies, indicated this to be the case, and were enthusiastically written on by Journos as if this was the definitive answer. However, the research was hugely flawed, because it did not look at specifically those smokers who actually wanted to give up and were looking for aids to help them. When this fraction of existing smokers were studied, the research shows something completely different: E-cigs are very effective, relative to other nicotine replacement therapy, in successfully quitting.

The new research has nullified the arguments against e-cigarettes as smoking cessation aids.

What's more, the strength of the effectiveness of e-cigs was so much higher than the alternatives its unlikely to be down to a statistical fluke.

The study can be found here, and a review of the article with the key quote below can be found in this article on WebMD:

....A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine in March found that electronic cigarettes do not help people curb or quit smoking.

"When used by a broad sample of smokers under 'real world' conditions, e-cigarette use did not significantly increase the chances of successfully quitting cigarette smoking," concluded that study's lead researcher, Dr. Pamela Ling, an associate professor at the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at University of California, San Francisco.

However, Siegel said the new study is different because the researchers didn't just look at people who used e-cigarettes, but at those who used them specifically to quit.

"They actually identified smokers who were trying to quit using e-cigarettes, whereas in the other study they just interviewed smokers in general," he said. "You really want to know when people are using them in an effort to quit and how successful they are."

The new, much more relevant research was published in May 2014.