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 An unpublished FDA analysis found 66 reports of e-cigarette overheating, fires, and explosions in 2015 and the first month of 2016, a number the agency calls "an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

Re:Regulation Please

[BlueStrat]

Or just criminalize them? I really don't want to pay more for health care because of other people's stupidity.

People will never stop doing stupid things that get them injured/killed. The only way to not pay more for health care because of stupid people doing stupid things is to not have a system that forces you and others to pay for other peoples' health care.

The only way to minimize the cost in a shared-cost health care system is to restrict the freedom of the people to make individual choices. Every decision and choice affects health in some manner. It's like the interstate commerce clause. It can be stretched to cover pretty much anything those in power want it to cover. It's the government's "master key" to removing individual freedom and the ability to choose.

There will always be individual risk in a free and open society. Deal with it or move somewhere where individual freedom and choice don't exist.

Strat