Every so often, a piece of research emerges that tells a specific audience exactly what it has always wanted to hear. Not because it is robust, well-evidenced or scientifically groundbreaking, but because it confirms a false belief they had already committed to. The latest claim that vaping “likely causes cancer” is a perfect example. And the speed with which it was embraced says less about the science than it does about the ignorance and credulity of those cheering it on.
For years, opponents of tobacco harm reduction have insisted, with absolute certainty, that vaping is just as harmful as smoking. This myth has endured despite a perpetual lack of evidence. Still, people who despise vapes have maintained that one day science would vindicate them. So, when a group of Australian researchers published a paper that they proclaimed “the most definitive determination” to date that vapes cause cancer, the media did not question that the moment had finally arrived.
Headlines around the world from nanny statists blared that vapes were linked to oral and lung cancer. Comment sections brimmed over with triumphant I told you so remarks. An accompanying video the researchers posted to YouTube claimed outright that “vaping causes cancer,” implying that this was based on “new findings.” It seemed as though the debate had been settled.
Except it hadn’t.
Strip away the media sensationalism, and the paper was simply a flimsy metareview of research conducted between 2017 and 2025. It contributed no new information at all. The authors claimed that vaping is carcinogenic and can “no longer be caricatured as safer than smoking,” but did not support this with anything resembling solid evidence.
The researchers merely recycled existing material, selectively interpreting findings and drawing conclusions that go far beyond what the underlying evidence actually supports. Nor did they evaluate the quality of that evidence. This included a handful of case reports of people who vaped and also developed cancer, an observation that means nothing.
“This is an un-systematic review,” states a comment on PubPeer, an anonymous post-publication review platform that’s highly regarded in the scientific community. “There appears to be no inclusion or exclusion criteria, or a preregistered protocol, or any justification for stopping the retrospective review at 2017. Consequently, no risk of bias assessment was conducted, there is no published protocol etc. Likewise, evidence is never sufficiently discussed in comparative terms to smoking cigarettes, the habit vaping is often designed to replace.”
The true cost of media credulity is not embarrassment, but harm.
The resulting message that vaping causes cancer, and is a public health threat as dangerous as smoking, became a masterclass in how weak evidence—amplified by eager media outlets—can hoodwink a credulous public.
There is a clear appetite in some quarters for bad news about vaping, an eagerness so strong that it overrides basic critical thinking.
Ben Youdan of Action on Smoking and Health New Zealand warned that this kind of research contributes to the deeply inaccurate public perception that vapes are as harmful as cigarettes. If people who smoke believe there is no reason to switch to vaping, they will continue smoking. Combustible cigarettes cause the vast majority of the world’s lung cancer deaths, and are responsible for more than 480,000 deaths in the United States each year. The link between cigarettes and cancer risk is a textbook example of epidemiological evidence, which is precisely the kind of evidence that the Carcinogenesis paper did not have.
At some point, persistence in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence stops looking like a mistake. There is now more than two decades of research indicating that vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking, with a landmark 2015 review estimating a risk reduction of 95 percent. No one’s claiming it’s risk-free, but it should make the comparison clear.
The true cost of media credulity is not embarrassment—though there should be plenty of that—but real harm.
Image via City of Bridgeport, Connecticut