From: Science 2.0
A new Cochrane Review paper provided an independent, rigorous assessment of the best available evidence to date about electronic cigarettes for quitting smoking and found that electronic cigarettes may help smokers stop their smoking, and there are no serious side effects associated with their use for up to two years.
The first Cochrane Review, published in the Cochrane Library in December 2014, also found that electronic cigarettes may be an aid to smokers in stopping their smoking. There haven’t been any new randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with long-term outcomes looking at the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes in helping people to stop smoking, likely because the world leader in science, the United States, has put a de facto ban on the products by declaring anything made after 2007 must undergo FDA registration. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also conflates them with cigarettes, despite the fact that there is no smoke, and in the current politicization of science climate of the Obama administration, studies won’t get funded if the hypothesis is anything else.