And to make matters even worse, the study actually did not even find that 11.9% of the former smokers were currently using electronic cigarettes. Nor did it find that 2.9% of the baseline nonsmokers were currently using electronic cigarettes.

Because this research was funded by the federal government (by the Army Research Office, to Cornell), it is subject to the human subjects research requirements. In addition, the involvement of two researchers at academic (federally-funded) institutions requires that the research be approved by an Institutional Review Board. Apparently, the research was approved by an academic IRB, a decision which I publicly question, for the above reasons.

The finding of reduced exhaled nitric oxide is an indication that an exposure is causing some sort of inflammatory effect on cells lining the respiratory tract. It doesn't mean anything more or less than that. You can't take two exposures - each of which causes respiratory tract inflammation - and make the statement that the effects of both exposures are equal. Risk posed by an exposure depends on many other factors, including the degree of inflammation induced, the reversibility of the effect, the nature of the exposure, the chronicity of the exposure, etc.

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