UniCal At It Again

They say the findings, published in JAMA, refute the notion that e-cigarettes can help people quit. More than that – they call the fact that vaping helps smokers quit “a common misperception among tobacco users and e-cigarette proponents”.

Study co-author Professor John Pierce commented: “Most smokers think vaping will help you quit smoking. However, this belief is not supported by science to date. While some researchers have suggested that smokers who switch to daily vaping will be more successful in quitting smoking, we studied quitting success among both daily and non-daily vapers and came up with a quite definitive answer.”

Pierce’s statement is an outright lie.

Last year, we covered the story that researchers at the University of Oxford, funded by Cancer Research UK to produce the Cochrane Review, “found the strongest evidence yet that e-cigarettes, also known as ‘vapes’, help people to quit smoking better than traditional nicotine replacement therapies, such as patches and chewing gums”.

The updated Cochrane review, Electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation, included 78 studies covering over 22,000 participants.

Pierce’s study analysed data from over 6,000 U.S. smokers from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study, a nationally representative sample of U.S. cigarette smokers. There were 943 smokers who also vaped and by matching and comparing these to similar smokers who didn't vape, they say they found:

• Smoking cessation was actually 4.1% lower among smokers who vaped daily
• Similarly, smoking cessation was 5.3% lower among smokers who vaped, but not daily, compared to matched smokers who did not vape

The press release accompanying the research paper states: “According to the CDC, almost 20% of people in the U.S. use tobacco products. While the majority of these people are cigarette smokers, some people have switched from smoking to vaping in recent years, in part because vaping is generally perceived as less harmful. This perception contributes to the belief among many smokers that vaping is an effective way to ‘taper off’ of cigarettes.

“Considering the potential dangers of vaping, the researchers note that while e-cigarettes don't have the same health consequences as smoking, they are not harmless.”

What potential dangers?

Pierce continues: “The adverse health effects of cigarette smoking become obvious after people have smoked for 20 years. While vapes generally don't contain the same harmful chemicals as cigarette smoke, they have other risks, and we just don't yet know what the health consequences of vaping over 20 to 30 years will be.”

It’s 2025.

Many members of the Planet of the Vapes forum switched from smoking to vaping up to 15 years ago. The basic fact is there has been no indication that vaping has presented any major cause of concern across that time – and we’ve been covering the independent research.

The researchers claim they were able to control for a wide range of other variables that are well-known to be associated with quitting, making it a “unique strength of the study”. This is disputed by experts in our other feature article today.

Senior author Karen Messer added: “For example, if a smoker is already very interested in quitting, has a smoke-free home, and does not smoke daily, they are much more likely to successfully quit regardless of whether they vape or not. We matched each smoker/vaper on such characteristics. You have to make very sure you're comparing like with like, and that's why this analysis is so definitive.

“As the public health community continues to grapple with the complexities of tobacco control, it is essential that we rely on rigorous scientific evidence to inform our policies and interventions.

“Our research shows that misleading associations between vaping and smoking cessation routinely occur unless confounding characteristics are carefully accounted for.”

References:

• Daily or Nondaily Vaping and Smoking Cessation Among Smokers - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2831011

Photo Credit:

• Images generated by author using AI

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV

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Dave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.