This blog deserves a prelude. Before you read this or worse, see the title and scan it and then torch it below; please note that I am a long-standing member of the forum and more importantly, an advocator of vaping. I have converted my friends and my family and encourage their continuing use of e-cigarettes and I am vaping while typing this. I do welcome any spirited debate anyone has but my main motivation behind this is to have a calm, collected and thought out counter-argument to a general agreement on the forum that vaping is 100% safe.
My main point is that I don’t know for sure and it is conceivable that you do not either. Is it safer than smoking tobacco, 100% yes and studies are out there that show that it is in fact safer. Is it also shown that there are no second hand effects of vaping and is 100% safer than second hand cigarette smoke. Any exposure to toxicity in the air to those around the e-cigarette user is safer when compared to toxins you would come in contact with in normal life like car exhaust as one example. The ingredients in “juice” are shown to be not harmful and are used in other products around you and some of the ingredients are sold at your local large box store. However, there are no long-term studies of the effects of vaping and any effects to long-term use and this is where I am sure we will not be in agreement along with some other points below.
Firstly, since there are no long-term studies on the effects of vaping; there is no real way to know if there are any. You can say that the PG in vaping is inhaled by those who work with fog machines but they aren’t inhaling it 16 hours a day and therefore, it is an assumption. Alcohol, as an example, is considered good for you in small doses. A single glass of wine in the evening is recommended in some places but 4 bottles of wine daily can cause liver and kidney issues through prolonged use.
My main concerns lie in the manufacturing of the products we use and this is mainly where my uncertainty lies. You can look this up but in the peanut butter that is likely in your kitchen cabinet, the government allows so many parts per million of rat feces. Let me repeat that, allows. It is considered safe for human consumption because it cannot be avoided. The pork products that you use on a daily basis are made with pigs that are crammed in with each other, barely enough room to move and standing in their own filth and this is with government regulations. The products we use have no such regulations. For pharmaceutical, food and medical device items manufactured for US use; the following manufacturing processes are required. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_manufacturing_practice and additionally, I added the requirements for manufacturing of inhalers as the closest parallel to vaping. http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/Guidances/ucm070573.pdf. I tried to find reputable sources to post here but you can easily find others.
In fairness, I have seen products sold for vaping that are made in the US and have to at least meet OSHA standards and I have also seen atomizers that use “food grade” materials. On top of that, the juices that I order (which are US made) have recently added the ingredients they use on the bottle; even though some of them are vague. If you have been vaping for any decent length of time, you have to know that this is not “the norm”. Most of these products are made in China and sent to US retailers or distributors. Your tanks, coils, clearomizers and 2/3 of the juice sold comes from China (*I read that here). For a small list of some of the health scares to come out of goods manufactured in China, see http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB118606827156686195. Some of these items were manufactured in China for US companies that must meet the same GMP standards listed above and still had to be recalled. If I am being fair to China, there have been recent recalls in: eggs, aspirin, beef and Hot Pockets by US companies that have to meet safe standards as well.
If you don’t think that these shops can be un-sanitary, go to a local machine shop and ask for a quick tour. I have been in some that didn’t look like they had cleaned the floors in 40 years. People were smoking while operating equipment, eating, and the machines had never been cleaned in any way and guess what? Your vaping items are made in similar machines. There are metal shavings and debris that come out of the machine, chemicals that are used on the wicking and people are touching something you put in your mouth. Are they washing their hands? Are they smoking cigarettes? Are they scratching their ... and packaging your products? You don’t know and neither do I. Someone had mentions bacteria, virus and pathogens. The following articles below show that while some live for only a few hours, some can live for months on dry surfaces at room temperature and that would include some such as staph infections and E.coli…………..and to save the comment, your coil may heat up to 185f but your drip tip doesn’t.
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/artic...nd-viruses-live-surfaces-home-normal-room-tem
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/6/130
http://www.initiatives-patientsafety.org/Initiatives4.pdf
Let’s assume that these are real risks. Can you do anything to protect yourself? You can sterilize any products that you buy or ONLY buy products that are made with “food safe” or “medical grade” materials (but I would still sanitize them). You could also either A. make your own juice or B. only buy juice from retailers who sell US made juices. Let’s assume that you do not want any government regulations. Then, the solution is to ONLY BUY from vendors who choose quality over low-price; that want their users to breathe easy knowing that they are getting a safe product because this is how capitalism effectively works. If you are shopping for the lowest price, there is usually a corner or two cut to get that lower price.
Look, I encourage everyone to vape. Logic would dictate that it is a much safer alternative to smoking tobacco. This forum’s main point is to be a place for new users and veterans to learn more about their products. This is not an attack on e-cigarettes or a “plan by the man” to derail a popular trend. Do I believe that everything above is 100% accurate? No, because I am not a complete ..... that believes everything they read on the internet but as a cynic and someone who cares about my friends who vape, my wife and myself who do too; it can be naive to just assume that it is all safe without questioning it. Furthermore, I wouldn’t tell anyone that I suggest vaping to that I know with absolute certainty that it is 100% safe. Regardless of what is true and not; I do not know.
My main point is that I don’t know for sure and it is conceivable that you do not either. Is it safer than smoking tobacco, 100% yes and studies are out there that show that it is in fact safer. Is it also shown that there are no second hand effects of vaping and is 100% safer than second hand cigarette smoke. Any exposure to toxicity in the air to those around the e-cigarette user is safer when compared to toxins you would come in contact with in normal life like car exhaust as one example. The ingredients in “juice” are shown to be not harmful and are used in other products around you and some of the ingredients are sold at your local large box store. However, there are no long-term studies of the effects of vaping and any effects to long-term use and this is where I am sure we will not be in agreement along with some other points below.
Firstly, since there are no long-term studies on the effects of vaping; there is no real way to know if there are any. You can say that the PG in vaping is inhaled by those who work with fog machines but they aren’t inhaling it 16 hours a day and therefore, it is an assumption. Alcohol, as an example, is considered good for you in small doses. A single glass of wine in the evening is recommended in some places but 4 bottles of wine daily can cause liver and kidney issues through prolonged use.
My main concerns lie in the manufacturing of the products we use and this is mainly where my uncertainty lies. You can look this up but in the peanut butter that is likely in your kitchen cabinet, the government allows so many parts per million of rat feces. Let me repeat that, allows. It is considered safe for human consumption because it cannot be avoided. The pork products that you use on a daily basis are made with pigs that are crammed in with each other, barely enough room to move and standing in their own filth and this is with government regulations. The products we use have no such regulations. For pharmaceutical, food and medical device items manufactured for US use; the following manufacturing processes are required. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_manufacturing_practice and additionally, I added the requirements for manufacturing of inhalers as the closest parallel to vaping. http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/Guidances/ucm070573.pdf. I tried to find reputable sources to post here but you can easily find others.
In fairness, I have seen products sold for vaping that are made in the US and have to at least meet OSHA standards and I have also seen atomizers that use “food grade” materials. On top of that, the juices that I order (which are US made) have recently added the ingredients they use on the bottle; even though some of them are vague. If you have been vaping for any decent length of time, you have to know that this is not “the norm”. Most of these products are made in China and sent to US retailers or distributors. Your tanks, coils, clearomizers and 2/3 of the juice sold comes from China (*I read that here). For a small list of some of the health scares to come out of goods manufactured in China, see http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB118606827156686195. Some of these items were manufactured in China for US companies that must meet the same GMP standards listed above and still had to be recalled. If I am being fair to China, there have been recent recalls in: eggs, aspirin, beef and Hot Pockets by US companies that have to meet safe standards as well.
If you don’t think that these shops can be un-sanitary, go to a local machine shop and ask for a quick tour. I have been in some that didn’t look like they had cleaned the floors in 40 years. People were smoking while operating equipment, eating, and the machines had never been cleaned in any way and guess what? Your vaping items are made in similar machines. There are metal shavings and debris that come out of the machine, chemicals that are used on the wicking and people are touching something you put in your mouth. Are they washing their hands? Are they smoking cigarettes? Are they scratching their ... and packaging your products? You don’t know and neither do I. Someone had mentions bacteria, virus and pathogens. The following articles below show that while some live for only a few hours, some can live for months on dry surfaces at room temperature and that would include some such as staph infections and E.coli…………..and to save the comment, your coil may heat up to 185f but your drip tip doesn’t.
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/artic...nd-viruses-live-surfaces-home-normal-room-tem
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/6/130
http://www.initiatives-patientsafety.org/Initiatives4.pdf
Let’s assume that these are real risks. Can you do anything to protect yourself? You can sterilize any products that you buy or ONLY buy products that are made with “food safe” or “medical grade” materials (but I would still sanitize them). You could also either A. make your own juice or B. only buy juice from retailers who sell US made juices. Let’s assume that you do not want any government regulations. Then, the solution is to ONLY BUY from vendors who choose quality over low-price; that want their users to breathe easy knowing that they are getting a safe product because this is how capitalism effectively works. If you are shopping for the lowest price, there is usually a corner or two cut to get that lower price.
Look, I encourage everyone to vape. Logic would dictate that it is a much safer alternative to smoking tobacco. This forum’s main point is to be a place for new users and veterans to learn more about their products. This is not an attack on e-cigarettes or a “plan by the man” to derail a popular trend. Do I believe that everything above is 100% accurate? No, because I am not a complete ..... that believes everything they read on the internet but as a cynic and someone who cares about my friends who vape, my wife and myself who do too; it can be naive to just assume that it is all safe without questioning it. Furthermore, I wouldn’t tell anyone that I suggest vaping to that I know with absolute certainty that it is 100% safe. Regardless of what is true and not; I do not know.
