A fact-check of those e-cigarette stories

Christie Aschwanden dissects the study behind last week's headlines about electronic cigarettes and the odds that their users will move on to regular cigarettes. What she finds is a sample size problem; 37.5% of e-cigarette users took up traditional smoking, but the raw count was just six of 16: "The media does the public no favors when it presents a single study (especially a small one like this) as gospel, rather than just a small addition to the amassing evidence."

September 14, 2015

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