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Dr. Thomas Frieden is the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Recently the organization released alarming numbers claiming the electronic cigarette trial among teens from 2011 to 2012 had doubled. This alone is a somewhat misleading statistic, but Frieden sat down with health news site Medscape for an interview and showed just how misleading he could make this figure.

Medscape asked the following question:

There is a growing health concern about the electronic cigarette and how it is being marketed to consumers. We have made so much progress in recent years fighting the tobacco problem in this country, and now we are faced with a new product that may be just as concerning. What is the CDC doing to address this concern?

This isn’t exactly a balanced question. It heavily implies that electronic cigarettes are a new tool on the side of tobacco in the ongoing fight between smoking and health. E-cigs could also be a tool to help fight smoking in a way never before possible. Medscape clearly isn’t looking for a balanced approach here.

And here’s what they get:

Use of e-cigarettes in youth doubled just in the past year, and many kids are starting out with e-cigarettes and then going on to smoke conventional cigarettes.

First, the numbers released were not for the past year but for 2011 to 2012. Second, the survey checked for whether or not teens had used e-cigs ever or at all within the 30 days previous to the survey. This means that there is no evidence as to how much on-going use is occurring or growing. All we know from the report is that the combined number of teens who had ever tried an electronic cigarette roughly doubled. Use of e-cigarettes to most members of the public implies on-going use — not simply trial. Whether these numbers and the survey sample are actually representative of all teens is still up for debate.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the survey did show a correlation between e-cig trial and smoking. It found that more than 75% of teens that said they had tried electronic cigarettes in the last 30 days had also smoked. BUT — this does not imply causation. If anything, it supports other research that finds smokers are more likely to try e-cigs. Trial of e-cigs among individuals that haven’t yet smoked is regularly showing up as something less than 1%.

We want to be a balanced as possible in reporting the research and events going on in the electronic cigarette industry. But it’s really hard when an individual misuses research with which he or she should be profoundly well acquainted.

Catch the full interview right here.