E-Cigs Are Exploding In Vapers' Faces At An Alarming Rate (buzzfeed.com)

E-cigs are becoming increasingly popular, but are they safe enough? BuzzFeed News is reporting about accidents where e-cigs have exploded in vapers' faces. The report claims that these incidents are occurring at an alarming rate. From the report (condensed): Across the country, defective e-cigarettes -- the nicotine delivery machines that have taken over every strip mall and sidewalk, seemingly overnight -- are creating hundreds of victims like Cavins (a 63-year-old Orange, California-based family therapist who lost an eye after an e-cig device exploded in his face), people whose lives are suddenly and horrifyingly changed when their devices blow up. They are people like Thomas Boes, whose vape exploded while he was driving outside San Diego and struck him with such force that two of the three teeth he lost lodged in his upper palate; Kenneth Barbero, whose exploding device ripped a hole in his tongue; and Marcus Forzani, a 17-year-old whose left leg was charred from his calf to his thigh after a vape battery exploded in his pocket. An unpublished FDA analysis found 66 reports of e-cigarette overheating, fires, and explosions in 2015 and the first month of 2016, a number the agency calls "an underestimate of actual events."

Comments

Wow

[geek]

66 whole reports?! Why, we need a law immediately! Someone call Congress!

And the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Government to the rescue!

Seriously, use a protected battery, use only one battery in the device, in low wattage devices that have short-circuit protection, and don't overcharge your battery. And don't buy the cheap shit batteries - the three bucks you save won't be worth it. It's that fucking simple.

natural selection doesn't apply

[OrangeTide]

missing and eye and your front teeth doesn't really slow you down from procreating. Given that your offspring would have their eyes and teeth, as e-cig explosions don't alter your genes. So you really only need to survive until they are able to take care of themselves.

Re: darwinian pressure

[slazzy]

The batteries shouldn't explode whem plugged into a USB with higher ampage available. That is a defective product.