I think that we're going to have to figure out how not to go ballistic, as we aren't all that far apart, and will HAVE to work together.
OK, Bovi explained his/her desires, pretty reasonable, though since all of science works on hypotheses that are tested and assembled into models that Engineers apply, I'd say good theories are plenty "good enough".
How about the other people here? What exactly do you want to be done by whom?
When I first came here I was struck by the emotional tension. I understand what Bill is reacting to, and he was mainly referring to people more extreme than present company, it's what's reflected in part in the accusatory tone that I was mentioning, and also in the belief that a lack of known PEL is the same as saying all diacetyl levels are deadly. I don't think Bill was trying to insult everyone here.
My concerns were different. In my DIY I had noticed that some buttery flavors felt highly irritating on inhalation, and that the concentrates had a specific burning "taste" on the tongue. When Shan showed me the acetyl Propionyl study, it changed my direction.
What I wanted was first a ball park idea of where we stand in inhaled concentration with substances that are (by now) known major irritants and are being used as flavoring. The fact that the estimate of what people were vaping reached 4.3 ppm, while we now know that 100-350 ppm in inhaled air turns rat airways into chopped liver in 6 hours, was not expected, and was way too close for comfort.
Merely pressing for manufacturers' disclosure and/or removal of diacetyl is difficult and is not enough. After we learn if Acetoin is like the diketones, there are and will HAVE to be others molecules, even in this limited range, Orville's got to make popcorn, wine has to taste nice, so I believe a different approach will be needed.
Flavorings cannot be inert, they are irritants, maybe by definition. Scenting compounds are selected for interaction with receptors on nasal mucosa, flavors are picked or synthesized for action on oral mucosa in dilute solution. The two are normally not interchangeable. The use of food flavorings in a vapor, to be "tasted" the way we do it, and inhaled at the same time, is an misapplication that's way "out of spec". The diketone story may come down in history as the deciding event.
The fact that more than a handful of vapers report some shortness of breath, myself included, combined with the diketone finding, leads me to want the following:
The industry to self-fund a quick and dirty medical report looking at what happens when people vape and experience some respiratory discomfort. What are the reported shortness of breath, stuffy nose and dry throat telling us about the underlying physiology. Is this just mild drying or is it significant? Find a sympathetic physician to examine a couple of vapers, not a thorough study, just a glance, like an afternoon's work for the physician.
Someone to organize a quick and dirty eval, by questionnaire, in people with vape-related shortness of breath, of vaping with deep inhaling but no flavoring, and vaping with heavy mixed flavoring but no inhaling. In other words which, the base or the flavoring, seems to be more responsible for the drying and the shortness of breath. This can be done in a couple of weeks. Again, just a quick check. More can be done later.
The model for a possible level, in inhaled vape, needs to be refined. And what the industry should fund now is a quick and dirty acute toxicity check of a dozen or more flavoring agents like the vanillins, menthol, some fruit synthetics, etc. Try them at 100-350 ppm in air, just like the Hubbs experiments with diacetyl and acetyl propionyl. One of the Hubbs articles describes the setup and many technical issues, it can be duplicated by a contractor tox lab fairly quickly. We don't need Nobel level research. Are we roughly in the same range, or are the other flavorings far less (or more) irritating? If they too produce damage to the respiratory tract at these concentrations, work the numbers on as refined a model as we can develop. Unless we have a far greater margin with these than with the diketones, we need to fully inform people, and the days of the luscious-tasty food-flavored vape might well be over. I for one don't think that I want to wait as long as was the case with the checking of diketones by NIOSH.
If there are big differences in how irritating different flavorings are, we will want the industry, over time, to work towards lists of flavors that by nature would require use of the most harmful flavorings, to be updated as they are identified, without demanding full disclosure of proprietary recipes. And generic lists of flavors that show what their main flavoring molecules are, so people can decide.
It's possible that I'm pessimistic, and that many flavorings will turn out to produce no significant respiratory tissue damage at say 350 ppm. But isn't it something YOU want to know now, and not in a few years, when the FDA gets its finger out of its ear or University level research is finally funded and done?
If we come to the realization that the practice of vaping with liquids that are (heavily) flavored, with any old food flavoring, will have to be abandoned, very light flavoring would then probably become the norm. The next stage would be finding flavoring that is effective at truly trace levels in the inhaled vapor, and more appro priate for this rather unique application. This may be an opportunity for some companies.
So that's what I would like to see happen, much more than pressuring OurVapeHeaven LLC to disclose if they use diacetyl. I realize these require cooperation, work and some sort of central organization. Some may be more difficult than others, like enlisting a physician who's not panicked about liability. But I don't think a meaningful large scale disclosure campaign is much easier, though it won't give us as many answers.
