How many e-cig studies can you fit in your hand?

Yesterday Steve K made me aware of this "Decent Article Derailed by Japanese Study". Reading the original article I see that the Japanese horror story and the following copy-paste journalism is still doing a lot of damage, kind of destroying an otherwise pretty good article about e-cigarettes. And then there is this:

The combination of uncertainty and the small handful of studies published to date mean that e-cigarette use is a gamble. There’s just not enough information to say for sure whether they are bad for you, or rather just how bad they are for you, considering the initial argument that they are far less harmful than tobacco.

Small handful of studies? I do realize that USB memory sticks today can fit a shitload of data, so technically this might be true, but seriously I do not think that was what they meant by this. Have a look at this study by Frank J. Domino, MD, published yesterday. The authors found and reviewed 99 full-text research papers. Is that a handful? Or how about all the studies collected on ecigalternative.com. Can those fit in your hand? As I said above, I assume that when they say a handful that is figuratively speaking, and in my opinion, if you are capable of using a handy tool called google, you should be able to dig up a lot more than a handful of studies. In fact I would say that Dr. Farsalinos studies alone would be around a handful... maybe two. But still I see the same thing in the media all the time: There is not much research done in the area yet. How is it even possible to state that when you obviously are able to access the internet... oh wait.. I just got it: Copy-paste journalism again. Damn...




photo credit: M Prince Photography via photopin cc