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E-Cigarettes Emit Toxic Vapors, Says Study (upi.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from UPI: All electronic cigarettes emit harmful chemicals, and levels of those toxic compounds are affected by factors such as temperature, type and age of the device, a new study finds. In laboratory tests, scientists found that the heat-related breakdown of propylene glycol and glycerin -- two solvents found in most e-cigarette liquids -- causes emissions of toxic chemicals such as acrolein, acetaldehyde and formaldehyde. All three are either respiratory irritants or carcinogens, the investigators said. The researchers also found that levels of harmful chemicals in e-cigarette vapor increase between the first few puffs and later puffs as the device gets hotter, and with each use of the device.The new study was published July 27 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. "Advocates of e-cigarettes say emissions are much lower than from conventional cigarettes, so you're better off using e-cigarettes," study corresponding author Hugo Destaillats said in a Berkeley news release. "I would say, that may be true for certain users -- for example, long-time smokers that cannot quit -- but the problem is, it doesn't mean that they're healthier. Regular cigarettes are super unhealthy. E-cigarettes are just unhealthy," he explained. The FDA will start regulating e-cigarettes like tobacco on August 8, 2016.
Gee, that's a nice relatively free market ya got there. Be a shame if somethin happened to it. Yeah, I think we're going to step in and interfere with it, against the wishes of both the buyers and sellers. To protect you from yourselves, of course, and absolutely not because we can't stand to have something that we don't control.
Seriously, making any sort of health claims about e-cigs was already illegal.
This is a device that was designed to emit toxic vapours.
Nicotine may be a toxin, but in the amounts in which it's consumed, that's the least concern about the effects upon the body. However, these devices weren't intended to emit other toxic vapors.
It's like saying that fireplaces pose a fire hazard or that an electric outlet carries the risk of electrocution. It's what it's supposed to do.
False. A fire hazard is an uncontrolled fire. A fireplace is designed to control a fire. An electric outlet is not designed to electrocute you. It's designed to deliver power to an appliance. Granted, some of them are not very well designed to explicitly not electrocute you, but that's a separate issue.
The idea of the vaporizer is to deliver as clean a smoking experience as possible. If you put water-based herbal extracts into them, that's what you're doing. What's interesting is that these other things aren't that clean, either. Anyone remember transparent cigarette papers? They were everywhere for a while, I went through a couple of packs myself on the basis that I was already smoking tobacco so who cares, but what was found is that only the center of the cherry is hot enough to burn the combustion byproducts into something harmless, which meant that you were getting a bunch of toxics from them even worse than smoking paper.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Fuck you, capitalism
I am always amazed by the people "smoking" e-cigarettes in places where smoking is not allowed. I've seen people use them in restaurants where smoking is prohibited, inside a school, and I even saw someone use one on an airplane.
Just because it doesn't create smoke like a conventional cigarette doesn't mean that the vapors and your exhalations aren't harmful. Stop using them in places where smoking is banned. Thank you.
Advocates of e-cigarettes say emissions are much lower than from conventional cigarettes, so you're better off using e-cigarettes. I would say, that may be true for certain users -- for example, long-time smokers that cannot quit -- but the problem is, it doesn't mean that they're healthier. Regular cigarettes are super unhealthy. E-cigarettes are just unhealthy.
Dude, if they're less unhealthy, that means that they're healthier. You just contradicted yourself.
Well, I guess he's from Berkeley, so they wouldn't have released it if it didn't involve at least some doublethink.
I too think e-cigarettes are an annoying and asinine way for people to keep doing something they know they shouldn't. And who knows what further problems we may eventually figure out they may cause. But that doesn't mean we get to lie about them. It makes it really hard to get behind a movement when its participants are spewing propaganda along with their actual science.
Vapers have done in two years what sin taxes haven't been able to do in two decades. Now that the state is missing their revenue they're going after whatever is next. It's not about the health of the population, it's about state funding and if smoking and vaping continue to decline they're going to look for those dollars elsewhere yet again, probably in more taxes for soda drinks. The health end of things is just to get the government fingers into the industry so they can further profit from it, nothing more. If they were serious about this level of public health they'd be taxing twinkies and big macs instead.
Research reports like this on e-cigarettes annoy me. Ordinarily I might suggest that the press releases are making things appear more shocking than the paper, but it seems like the paper writers have also overemphasised the results of this study. This research appears to be a presence/absence experiment, rather than an actual harm experiment. The thought process seems to follow something like the following:
The problem is that studies of this sort aren't actually demonstrating harm. It's like saying that air contains carbon monoxide, so we shouldn't breathe it. In the paper, there are a few weasel words used that encourage thoughts like this:
Chemical analysis of e-liquids and vapors emitted by e-cigarettes led to the identification of several compounds of concern due to their potentially harmful effects on users and passively exposed nonusers... compounds are considered possible or probable carcinogens
The researchers say that they'll do the actual harm testing as an additional step:
The researchers are working on a follow-up study focusing on the health and environmental impacts of e-cigarettes.
Or, in the paper:
These chemical emissions are associated with both cancer and noncancer health impacts that will be quantitatively evaluated in an ensuing paper.
But until that's done (and has meaningful results) it's difficult to make a good case that E-cigarettes are doing the wrong thing and should be avoided.
Ask me about repetitive DNA