It would be interesting to know what the actual hardware setup was as well as the nico source .. likely some off the shelf unit, I would imagine .. in my experience, the equipment has a lot to do with the ability to actually quit the analogs ..
The authors were referring to Tom Eissenberg's study at Virginia Commonwealth University. The hardware involved were two brands, Crown 7 and NJOY. These were tested against the subject smoking his/her own brand of cigarette. The placebo condition was puffing on an unlit cigarette. After testing half of the subjects involved, Eissenberg wrote to
Tobacco Control and issued a press release stating "E-cigarettes are as effective at delivering nicotine as an unlit cigarette." The media picked up on the VCU press release big time.
The problem with the findings, however, was not the hardware used. It was the fact that he was testing blood after 10 puffs from one of the devices and comparing that to the nicotine blood levels after 10 puffs of real smoke. We know from Dr. Laugesen's (Health New Zealand) work that on a puff-per-puff basis, the nicotine in vapor is anywhere from 1/3 to 1/10 the amount in a puff of smoke.
The only way to know for sure whether the devices deliver nicotine "effectively" (that is, well enough to help people refrain from lighting up) is to allow e-cig users to take a puff whenever they feel they want to.
Eissenberg's standard for "effective" was "an equal number of puffs raises the nicotine content of the blood to the same level." When all the subjects had been through the testing, the article that was published (with one Eissenberg's grad students as the first author) concluded "Under these acute testing conditions, neither of the electronic cigarettes exposed users to measurable levels of nicotine or CO, although both suppressed nicotine/tobacco abstinence symptom ratings."
IMHO, this is a rather positive finding. However, the antis keep quoting Eissenberg's Letter to the Editor of
Tobacco Control, instead of the complete study findings, published in the journal
Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
And VCU never issued a press release stating that e-cigarettes don't raise blood levels of carbon monoxide or increase heart rate, like real smoke does, but they do suppress withdrawal symptoms. Nope. Never mentioned it.
Otherwise, very good response, and I've shared on fb and G+.
