NEJM Editorial by Dr. George O’Connor featured in New York Times

Featured in the New York Times article “E-Cigarettes Are Effective at Helping Smokers Quit, a Study Says”, the New England Journal of Medicine editorial by BU pulmonologist  Dr. George O’Connor and Dr. Belinda Borrelli, a behavioral health expert, “noted that 80 percent of the study participants who had quit by using e-cigarettes were still vaping at one year, while only nine percent of the nicotine replacement therapy group was still using nicotine products.” 

Countering the claim by other studies mentioned in the article, the editorial suggests that while cigarette use has discontinued in both groups, nicotine exposure continued at one year for 8 times as many participants using e-cigarettes opposed to nicotine replacement therapy. This “raised concerns, they wrote, about sustained nicotine addiction and the unknown health consequences of long-term e-cigarette use.”

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