How to Generate Bogus Conclusions (E-Cig Study Edition) [View all]

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Tue Mar 25, 2014, 05:59 PM - Edit history (5)

When researchers do a study this stupid it leaves one wondering whether they are corrupt (doing a study they know to be bogus in order to reach a predetermined desired outcome) or amazingly stupid, or both.

I put forward that even a small child could devise a more scientifically valid study to answer the question, "Do e-cigarettes help people quit actual cigarettes?"

For instance, one could look at a population of people trying to quit smoking and compare their success based on reliance on e-cigs or without.

But these idiots, and I mean that because this is beyond the scientific pale, sought to determine whether e-cigs help people quit who are not trying to quit.

Un-fucking-believable.

Do you know what really works for people who are not trying to quit smoking quit smoking? NOTHING. Because they are not trying to quit smoking.

(The study does ask about intentions to quit at some future date, which is like polling people on whether they plan to vote or quizing newlyweds on their plans for marital fidelity. The fact that very few people would ever admit to planning to smoke forever does not mean that everyone is actually trying to quit in the near term.)

This is like a study showing that the job market is no worse than it ever was because among people who are not seeking a job, their odds of finding a job are the same as they were in 2007 — 0.00%

Check this out: “You’ll hear lots of stories from people that say that e-cigarettes help them quit, but what we found was when we actually studied that systematically, we didn’t see a significant effect on cessation”

This is a flat fucking LIE. Nobody in this study, "studied that systematically." They did not study THAT at all.

There is NOTHING in the study about studying whether e-cigs help people quit. The only study is whether having used e-cigs while NOT quitting helps you quit at some later date.

Who are these people who anecdotally claim that e-cigs "help them quit"?

Drumroll... PEOPLE WHO NO LONGER SMOKE. "Help them quit" means they are not smoking. And not one single one of them was in this study, which is A STUDY OF PEOPLE WHO SMOKE.

If you want to read only one paragraph here, read this one:

The method of the study excludes people for whom e-cigs work. I am not kidding. Take two smokers. Give them e-cigs. One says, "I love this thing. Goodbye cigarettes." The other one says, "This isn't doing it for me. I want to keep smoking." Now, we want to do a study of e-cig efficacy... who should we study? The second guy! The one who has 1) tried e-cigs, and 2) still smokes. That is the entire e-cig population in this study. Smokers who have NOT quit cigarettes depite having tried e-cigs. Again... The efficacy of e-cigs for quitting cigarettes is measured by studying a population of people defined by having used e-cigs, and yet still smoke tobacco.

The study says that people who smoke BOTH cigarettes and e-cigs are no more likely than regular smokers to quit in the next year.

Well, fucking duh. Actually, they are some what less likely, as the study finds. People who smoke cigarettes and also smoke e-cigs are primarily people so addicted that they use e-cigs to survive in no-smoking situations. Hell, I would expect them to have a lower quit rate.

Why not do a study proving that junkies who chug methadone while shooting heroin don't tend to get off heroin?

This here is a small point, by still... would a finding that young people talk about quitting but don't shock you? In my experience, 18-29 folks like to talk about quitting but since they can still walk up stairs and breathe and such their motivation is often less. Would it surprise you to know that the e-cig population in the study is young? (It's the one really notable statistical deviation between the e-cig group and the non e-cig group.)

Also, check out the raw numbers. The study is of 949 smokers, which sounds fairly robust. But the conclusion is based on the 88 person subset of dual users. So the money conclusion is based on a study of, in effect, 172 people. having more than 88 people in the "smoker-no e-cigs" category doesn't help. You can add a million people to the "current cig smoker who has not used an e-cig in the last month" category and the entirety of e-cig related behavior is still based on the same 88 people. Garbage in, garbage out. No matter how exacting the figure for quit rate among one group is, a comparison of quit rates between two groups is meaningless if either of the numbers being compared is meaningless.

The study conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, looked at the habits 949 smokers, including 88 smokers who reported they had also used e-cigarettes in the last month. Researchers found that smokers who also used e-cigarettes were no more likely to quit smoking after a year, compared to smokers who didn’t use the electronic smoking devices.

“We found there were no differences in rates of quitting between those who used electronic cigarettes and those who did not,” Dr. Rachel Grana, the lead researcher on the new study told Newsday.

“You’ll hear lots of stories from people that say that e-cigarettes help them quit, but what we found was when we actually studied that systematically, we didn’t see a significant effect on cessation,” study co-author Dr. Pamela Ling told CTV News.

http://www.econewsdesk.com/2014/03/25/study-finds-e-cigarettes-dont-help-smokers-quit