Electronic Cigarettes: FDA Miscalculates Real Danger to Smokers

[KermieD]

That is incorrect. Again, it is to be assumed that this was part of a bad batch, as, historically, issues of mass poisoning due to DEG (remember the big toothpaste scare of a few years back? That was 6% concentration and people died just brushing their teeth and spitting it out) have traditionally been a result of DEG contamination being in what should have been pure glycerine. The same is true of any DEG found in analogs. It is not an ingredient. It is an aberration, not a normal occurrence. Glycerin is commonly used as a humectant in cigarettes, and any DEG would be the same situation as what I'm sure the FDA found in that one cartridge.

1% concentration of DEG in anything being inhaled is very serious stuff. If that were the norm for e-cigs, I would go back to analogs in a heartbeat. A 1% concentration in cigarettes would kill a pack a day smoker in a month. Period.

[kristin]

They must have been swallowing massive amounts of toothpaste. DEG is listed as low acute toxicity. Probable lethal dose to humans is 0.5-5 g/kg.

There is no way to tell how many grams/milligrams that 1% found by the FDA actually is, because they don't tell us the size of the cartridges tested.

There are numerous references to diethylene glycol and triethylene glycol being used as tobacco humectants - not by accident.

I'm sure if there was any DEG in electronic cigarettes that was in more than trace amounts, some of the millions of people regularly using them over the past 5 years would have either become seriously ill or died.

Either way, I made sure to include the actual amount of DEG found in the FDA report - I didn't just call it "trace." I didn't hide or misrepresent anything.

[KermieD]

Ok, you continue to miss the point in your defensiveness. I can SEE that you said 1%. They told you that up front in the study. However, you DID call it "traces" which is exactly the reason the FDA is going to kick our backsides in this lawsuit. Calling it "trace" while acknowledging the 1% is not hiding, as you correctly stated, but it IS casting spin on the finding (and very misleading spin at that), which is definitely misrepresenting. As much as we talk about them sweeping stuff under the rug, that's a perfect example served up to them about us doing the same.

I have given you the facts about DEG and the dangers of it, and it's NOT hard to look up and verify, and your assertions to the contrary do not change any of that. Yes, they did say how big the cartridge was that they found it in, because the specificially identified it as a SE 555 cartridge. And 1% is 1% regardless of volume because vapers will vape different amounts, so talking about how many mg it was is pointless. It was 1% of the volume. If you vape 30ml a week, that's .3 ml a week. If you vape 5ml a week, that's .05 ml a week of DEG. Size of the cart is pointless either way.

Your assertion that DEG is used in cigarettes as a humectant is ludicrous. They use the same thing juice makers do -- PG. On top of that, your assertion here that DEG is more prevalent than 1% in cigarettes is downright ignorant. The average king sized cigarette has 1.077g of tobacco. The average king sized cigarette has 3mg of humectant. Even if the tobacco company got an absolutely craptastic batch of PG that was, let's say a whole 10% DEG, you're talking about 0.3mg of DEG. Simple math (we'll round the tobacco down to 1g to make it easy and to give you the benefit of the doubt) lands you to the obvious math that the DEG in the worst case scenario cigarette is 0.03%.

This is exactly why the FDA is going to win the case. All we're doing is saying that it's too narrow a study, misrepresenting the dangers of what they actually DID find and not doing any science on our own. If you want to see how it's done and how it's done properly, take a look at the lawsuit the National Association of Rocetry and the Tripoli Rocketry Association took down the BATFE in court, even post 9/11. And, with a much smaller user base than exist in the e-cigarette business.

You will not win this case either in court or in the court of public opinion by misrepresenting facts and countering corrections with defensiveness and further misrepresentation. I am not trying to bring this out as a personal attack but as a heads up that well written stories that try to dismiss actual experimental findings by using terms like "trace" to describe toxic levels. Until someone gets their act together and contracts an independent lab to do some studies that show any data that specifically refutes the FDA's findings and not just some smoke and mirrors arguments, this is over already.

The clinical effects of DEG poisoning can be divided into three stages: The first phase consists of gastrointestinal symptoms with evidence of inebriation and developing metabolic acidosis. If poisoning is pronounced, patients can progress to a second phase with more severe metabolic acidosis and evidence of emerging renal injury, which, in the absence of appropriate supportive care, can lead to death. If patients are stabilized, they may then enter the final phase with various delayed neuropathies and other neurological effects, sometimes fatal. Toxicity of DEG. Doses of DEG necessary to cause human morbidity and mortality are not well established. They are based predominantly on reports following some epidemics of mass poisonings, which may underestimate toxicity. The mean estimated fatal dose in an adult has been defined as ∼1 mL/kg of pure DEG.

Diethylene glycol poisoning - Clinical Toxicology

Now, perhaps my assertion that 1% would kill you in a month was a bit of an exaggeration, but as I see people talk about their vaping habits, you're still talking about less than a year to kill some vapers here if they smoke purely off a bad batch , and note that the abstract states that that amount is based on factors that UNDERSTATE the toxicity.

[KermieD]

The fact here is that what should be said is "yes, this is concerning and it is a quality control issue, but we have formed industry organizations that are in the process of taking steps to institute quality control standards that will be as effective if not more so than governmental oversight will accomplish", not "oh, 1% is just a trace amount" when it's very clearly a serious potential hazard.

[kristin]

You're absolutely right. I did get defensive about being called irresponsible. I felt I still was being responsible by giving the actual amount - letting people decide for themselves.

Seriously, I have found many references to diethylene glycol and triethylene glycol use as "a humectant in tobacco." I wouldn't just make it up, I promise. I know that propelyne glycol is primarily used.

I don't know if I understand that 1% is the same amount regardless of the amount? If you consume 2oz of liquid, 1% would be .2 ounces of DEG you'd be consuming. If you use 10oz of at 1% you'd be consuming 1.0 ounce of DEG. So the amount DOES make a difference in what you're actual intake is - that's how I was looking at it. Those kids consumed 5 oz tubes of toothpaste at 6%.

I don't know how much liquid is in a Smoking Everywhere 555 cartridge? The FDA listed the Nicotrol amount as 10ml, but not how many ml was in the e-cig cart.

I saw one tobacco report that the weight of a cigarette is as much as 5% humectants. Who knows how much of that is DEG? I think we can agree, though, that there are a lot of other things in the tobacco that is much, much worse - arsenic, ammonia, etc!

I completely agree that it's a quality control issue that should be definitely be addressed - I even endorse setting manufacturing standards later in the article. So, I guess I felt the "irresponsible" remark was a bit harsh, considering.

[kristin]

From that link:

"The mean estimated fatal dose in an adult has been defined as ∼1 mL/kg of pure DEG."

A cart is what, .25ml at most of liquid? (It takes me over a month to use up 30ml of liquid, using about 3-4 carts per day.) That means the 1% DEG found would be about .0025ml of DEG per cart? So, you'd have to vape about 400 carts to get 1ml of DEG?

I'm not so good at math, lol! I may be figuring this wrong...

[ZorbaTheGreek]

The mean estimated fatal dose in an adult has been defined as ∼1 mL/kg of pure DEG.

So, at 1%, I'd need to smoke about 1,000ml of juice before the DG can be removed from my system before I'd reach toxic levels. Right? And the toxicity for nicotine is actually higher, at 3.4mg/kg, so I should stop buying juice with nicotine in it too? 1% is high, too high, but the consumption rate is low, high end of what, a few ml a day? Maybe 10? So at a very high consumption rate, 10ml a day (taking in potentially 0.1ml DEG a day), you'd have ~1000 days, give or take, before you reach toxic levels. I'm not sure how much/how quickly it leaves your system, or even sure it does. But I'm just curious if your alarm is entirely deserved. Not trying to flame, and correct me if I'm wrong anywhere here. Just saying what I've found in my own research is that even 1%, it would be very hard to reach toxic levels.

[kristin]

Yes, I'd be curious to know how fast the body eliminates the DEG or if it can actually build up over time.

[KermieD]

I think you would be hard pressed to find an article about DEG being used as a humectant outside of an anti-tobacco activist site or someone using their data from such a site, and even then, you'll find that they will seldom go any farther than saying that DEG is a component of the humectant.

When I say it doesn't matter how big the cart is, I'm just saying that 1% is 1%. If you go through 30ml a month, you get 0.3 ml a month of DEG in that scenario. If you go through 60 in a month, you get 0.6ml a month.

Again, you will probably come to the conclusion that you'll never vape enough DEG to kill you, but that would still ignore the potential for extensive permanent damage at lower levels and the fact that you're inhaling rather than ingesting and digesting.

An important thing to consider here before we try to sweep an 1% concentration of DEG under the rug as a trace amount is that, gram for gram, DEG has a higher mean fatal toxicity level than arsenic. If you told me that something that contained a full percentage point of arsenic in it was okay or better for you than, say, a cigarette, you'd lose any and all credibility in my eyes.

Again, perhaps "irresponsible" is too strong a word and I apologize for opening with that term, but it's incorrect to try to sweep a 1% concentration of DEG under the carpet by calling it a "trace" amount, implying that it's irrelevant.

[KermieD]

So, at 1%, I'd need to smoke about 1,000ml of juice before the DG can be removed from my system before I'd reach toxic levels. Right? And the toxicity for nicotine is actually higher, at 3.4mg/kg, so I should stop buying juice with nicotine in it too? 1% is high, too high, but the consumption rate is low, high end of what, a few ml a day? Maybe 10? So at a very high consumption rate, 10ml a day (taking in potentially 0.1ml DEG a day), you'd have ~1000 days, give or take, before you reach toxic levels. I'm not sure how much/how quickly it leaves your system, or even sure it does. But I'm just curious if your alarm is entirely deserved. Not trying to flame, and correct me if I'm wrong anywhere here. Just saying what I've found in my own research is that even 1%, it would be very hard to reach toxic levels.

3.4mg/kg would be a lower toxicity than 1mg/kg.