A germ-killing vapor

[Threshold]

great info. thanks TB and others.

[phylo]

Well after an hour or two of looking around the net I cant find anything other than the original article posted by TB that says anything good about PG... Although I did find out that PG is in a ton of the products that most people use every day of there lives... Stuff like deodorant, skin moisturizers and all kinds of other stuff... I cant seem to find anything about vaporized PG and its effects on the body though.

Phil

[TropicalBob]

Here's a bit more from researching the doctor and his work with PG:

Our initial conclusion on why this study isn't widely known was the correct one: Filling rooms with propylene glycol vapor is not a practical solution. No one could know then what we know now: A personal PG delivery system can be no bigger than a cigarette and quite inexpensive.

The research to find a way to rid shared rooms of germs became a war effort, and Dr. O.H. Robertson headed the "Commission on Air-Borne Infections". In a final report after he showed how effective his controlled studies had been, the commission wrote:

"On the negative side, sterilization of the air by ultraviolet light or glycol vapors does not appear to be practicable either in barracks or all hospital wards, or in theaters."

Dr. Robertson did not pursue much after his discovery proved to have no military value. He soon left the research to devote time to his passion, salmon.

But what he did learn in his PG studies was that a vapor, not an aerosol or mist, was most effective at killing germs. "As the work progressed it was found that propylene glycol in vapor form was highly bactericidal, and that the marked and rapid germicidal action of propylene glycol aerosol was due to vapor liberated from the small glycol droplets. When pure vapor was employed, it was found to be more effective than an equal quantity of propylene glycol dispersed as an aerosol," his report says.

"Propylene glycol vapor was also found to exert a lethal or at least an inactivating effect on the virus of influenza," he added, as well as many even more serious germs.

Who was this guy? "A physician and naturalist, Oswald Hope Robertson worked at the Rockefeller Institute, the Peking Union Medical College, and at the medical school of University of Chicago (1927-1951). With a broad range of research interests, Robertson contributed important work on the transmission of pneumonia, the disinfection of air with glycol vapors, and later in his career, on the physiology and ecology of salmonid fishes. He is best remembered, however, as the creator of the first blood bank, established for use by British and American forces during the First World War.

"He died in Santa Cruz on March 23, 1966, leaving his wife, Ruth, and three children."

Below is a link to the scientific first report of his discovery. Go all the way to the bottom to view pictures of bacteria in dishes of broth. He also wrote, "The susceptibility to vapor action of bacteria re-suspended in saliva was just as great as when broth was used as the suspending medium."

http://www.karr-tv.com/picrender.pdf

[dnakr]

That is amazing. We could actually be "improving" the air we breathe around us, thus reducing our chance of getting sick. What would the non-smokers think? After reading his articles - I do feel a lot better PG. Maybe this could play an important role in getting the e-cig accepted.

[TropicalBob]

There were many types of viruses listed for which propylene glycol was deadly, including those that cause pneumonia and influenza.

Consider the following from medical Web sites, on the impact on just the United States of the consequences of pneumonia and flu:

"Death rate extrapolations for USA for Pneumonia: 61,776 per year, 5,148 per month, 1,188 per week, 169 per day."

"Each year, approximately 226,000 people in the US are hospitalized with complications from influenza and an average of 36,000 die from the disease and its complications."

I hope both Dr. Loi and Dr. Laugesen take note of disease incidences among test e-smokers and incorporate their findings into their clinical trial results. No reporter in a forum is going to get this news public! But if an official medical report raised the prospect of improving health with personal propylene glycol inhalers (nicotine is purely optional), well ... we might be off and running.

Imagine the benefits in crowded, close quarters, like ... an airplane.

[kvcrom]

wow interesting stuff....

[karenwest1961]

This thread deserves 5 stars and more research. Good job guys. I read with great interest.

[katink]

Imagine the benefits in crowded, close quarters, like ... an airplane.

The world reversed

Great job on this TB, this sure looks promising; and also looks to be a relief to many a worried e-smoker.

These findings might also hold the answer to my puzzle, why my trials using EM (effective micro-organisms) only showed modest results in cleaning the atomizers.

I thought I hadn't prepared the EM well enough (have only been starting this a small while ago, just using first-round resulting EM-liquid), and I will still persue this route to make sure that isn't the cause after all... but if PG does what this study describes, it could also be a case of the cleaner (EM) being made ineffective or even partially dead by the PG it is attacking... so they might be killing each other... interesting...

Anyhow, I sure hope the positive sounds on PG hold their ground, it would/could have big consequences.

[Nazareth]

I hope both Dr. Loi and Dr. Laugesen take note of disease incidences among test e-smokers and incorporate their findings into their clinical trial results. No reporter in a forum is going to get this news public! But if an official medical report raised the prospect of improving health with personal propylene glycol inhalers (nicotine is purely optional), well ... we might be off and running.

But again, the point needs to be made that while this might be good short term, again, might it also cause super-bugs to arise? We're seeing an alarming rate of super-bugs in recent years, and hte reasons are that we've becoem an 'over-cautious' society where we wipe everythign down with antibacterials, run the kids ot docs everytime htey get a cold so we can get antibiotics, etc, and we're on the verge of epidemics caused by bugs that we have no medicines to control because the bacteria and viruses have mutated to hte point where they ar4 resistent ot everythign we throw at them.

I like hte idea of PG beign a germ killer, but the cautious side of me worries about what might happen when bacteria and viruses mutate to be able to resist even the PG thrown at them, and we end up with new strains of superbugs even deadlier than the old ones.

[Mamba]

Originally Posted by Nazareth

I like hte idea of PG beign a germ killer, but the cautious side of me worries about what might happen when bacteria and viruses mutate to be able to resist even the PG thrown at them, and we end up with new strains of superbugs even deadlier than the old ones.

It depends on how the propylene glycol acts as compared to conventional chemical antibiotics. If its action is physical like colloidal silver then there would be no way for bacteria and viruses to build a resistance to the effect. I'll do some research on this and see if I can find an answer. Since it's relevant to this thread here's a link to another study which might be of interest if people have the access.

Studies of the Effect of Dihydro-Streptomycin Propylene-Glycol Spray on Chronic Respiratory Disease in Chickens