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Every few months it seems a pop culture outlet notices that some celebrities are using electronic cigarettes and they write about the trend. They rarely say much about e-cigs other than that they vaporize a nicotine liquid and that celebs are using them — pointing most often to Johnny Depp and Katherine Heigl.

A recent article like this popped up from the Examiner (which you can find right here). It largely tilted in favor of electronic cigarettes saying that they are a healthier alternative to regular cigarettes. Although we believe enough research has been done to prove that e-cigs are healthier, most media outlets tend to avoid saying as much.

One of the supporting facts the article uses to shine a positive light on electronic cigarettes is that 31% of individuals that have tried electronic cigarettes quit smoking within 3 months. That sounds pretty awesome, but even the most promising research has yet to show those kinds of results.

The 31% statistic was pulled from an infographic on a website called Cashsherpa.com. The first issue one might notice looking at both is that the statistic changes from one site to the other. The original graphic says that 31% quit within 6 months instead of 3. The culprit seems to be the intermediary site that the Examiner links to and which itself misquotes the infographic (which is embedded in the same page) and links back to Cashsherpa.

This alone shows the gradual decay that information suffers as it is passed from website to website (even we’ll admit to needing to make a few corrections). But then, there’s even a problem with the original statistic. Cashsherpa doesn’t provide any reference to the origin. In fact, the statistic is one that shows up all over the internet, rarely with any distinct finger pointing to where it came from.

This often sets our skeptical nature on high alert — and few people are interested enough in the topic to dig deep enough to confirm whether or not their BS detector is correct.

Where did the statistic actually come from? We’ll tell you that in part II.