This has been a hot topic of research in the public health community, and from more legitimate researchers there is still a lot of debate. However this kind of move is striking in it's similarity to the known tried and tested maneuvers of the tobacco industry to undercut public understanding of the risks with their products.

This is the 21st century equivalent of attempting to disprove the links between smoking and cancer.

It's similar but not what I'd call equivalent, because the risks of smoking and vaping are different and differently understood in their respective PR battles. The science is still out on how safe vaping is in the long term, but apart from liquids having certain additives like diethyl that are known to be unsafe now, it appears to be reasonably safe.

The undercutting of understanding the risks of cigarettes was happening when the risks would have been blatantly obvious to researchers, unlike with current vaping products. So while the PR technique is similarly appalling, the context is different.

Over half of the researchers are employees of Juul. Not funded or financed, but employed.

I mean, yeah they're a smoking cessation tool which has been taken up by non-smokers, like any other drug with somewhat recreational effects out there.

Vaping for fun can be done without nicotine, though. They could place some more visible stickers that say "Smoke only nicotine free - same fun, no stupid addiction!" or something.

And locking e-cigarettes behind a prescription would just make people continue smoking the freely available tobacco products. Nicotine patches failed to gain wide adoption in part because of that.

Well, nicotine addiction is a debatable topic as nicotine itself is actually not addictive as a compound.

Any source for that claim? I can only say from the personal experience that people I know and I used to be addicted to nicotine (not only in tobacco products)