http://sph.bu.edu/index.php?option=c...articleid=3366
peer reviewed....
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jph...hp201041a.html
And again, no one is claiming these are 100% totally safe. What they are, without doubt, is safer than regular cigs.
Fair points, on the surface at least. Digging a bit deeper the picture shifts. You realize of course one must be critical of scientific papers published:
1) Finding an article that says what you argue is not really a problem - look here:
www.pubmed.org
2) Your find is an article - not a double blinded randomized control trial (aka the gold standard).
3) Finding a respectable top 5 medical journal publishing the same article is hard.
4) Finding a meta analysis of the subject, Cochrane, non existant.
5) Your article is not published (and thus peer reviewed) in one of the world's top 5 medical journals - such as 'The Lancet' and 'New England Journal of Medicine' - serious journals. It's published in a mediocre journal. It affects its credibility etc.
6) There are good reasons to why one compares to placebo and not directly between products. Precisely to correct for placebo / perceived effects.
Basically readers of scientific papers evaluate a given publication's credibility on many levels. This is part of the scientific approach and essential to 'evidence based medicine' f.inst. For starters whom publishes the article is a basic pointer. Google 'impact factor' and 'journal citation reports' for more info. Also, if you have academic login, lookup 'journal of citation reports' and see the impact factor for the publisher - or just take
wikipedia's datafor granted - I checked, it's precisely average / low end as stated:
Rank Abbreviated Journal Title
(linked to journal information) ISSN JCR Data More Information Eigenfactor? MetricsMore Information
Total Cites Impact
Factor 5-Year
Impact
Factor Immediacy
Index Articles Cited
Half-life Eigenfactor?
Score Article Influence?
Score
78 J OCCUP HEALTH 1341-9145 2065 1.550 1.638 0.214 56 8.9 0.00283 0.485
TLDR; To put it bluntly: The article you posted does not have sufficient credibility on it's own to make a factual judgment call / case - it's pointing in a certain direction, but the impact and force it has is very small. More research is needed, and your statements on the 'without doubt' is seriously discredited - we do not know the long term effects. This does not prevent us from making educated guesses, sure, but it's not fact, yet.
This is not even touching on the initial subject of the thread - quitting smoking - as in the efficacy of the device as a smoking cessation aid. AFAIK there are no RCT's or cochrane's on this. Perhaps you've stumbled across them and I have not? Otherwise we're stuck at anecdotal evidence which is just that, anecdotal. Bring on the homeopathic remedies and superstition too, eh?