... Also the parts per billion equal minute amounts in my opinion when talking about TSN's. I could be wrong but almost all of the juices were from China "based" ... Thus far, none of the more than 10,000 chemicals present in tobacco smoke, including over 40 known carcinogens, has been shown to be present in the cartridges or vapor of electronic cigarettes in anything greater than trace quantities.
No one has reported adverse effects, although this product has been on the market for more than 3 years. ... Still, the FDA struck a more ominous tone in its July 2009 press release, warning of the presence of carcinogens at detectable levels.29 Yet it failed to mention that the levels of these carcinogens was similar to that in NRT products.
(Table 2). Whereas electronic cigarettes cannot be considered safe, as there is no threshold for carcinogenesis, they are undoubtedly safer than tobacco cigarettes.
I'd like to expand on this a bit.
TSNs are "tobacco specific nitrosamines."
Some nitrosamines are known to be carcinogenic. The primary source of nitrosamines in humans in the U.S. is the human stomach. You see, the human stomach provides acid conditions under which the FDA-approved nitrite (NOT "nitrATE" but "nitrITE") preservatives combine with the secondary amines in proteins (from meat, grain, whatever) to form ... ta dah! ... nitrosamines.
Nitrosamines are IN GENERAL carcinogenic. They are abundant in the air we breath anytime substances containing protein are cooked, and anytime we eat something preserved with nitrites.
The focus on TOBACCO SPECIFIC nitrosamines is simply, by definition, a singling out of tobacco for vilification. Have you ever heard of "beef-specific nitrosamines?" Well, they DO exist.
I want to point out that our very own government has established regulations that literally *require* the addition of certain levels of nitrites to certain foods and thus require people who eat those foods to consume carcinogenic nitrosamines. They limit the amount of nitrite used in order to limit the exposure to nitrosamines; but it should be clear that they have determined a "safe level of exposure" for those purposes. Probably, to be honest, this level of exposure is NOT safe and simply represents a balancing act between the need to keep people from dropping dead immediately from bacterial contamination as opposed to dropping dead later from a cancer of "unknown" cause.
I don't see anyone proposing the addition of a warning label with diseased organs on beef jerky; even though 99% of the jerky sold in this country is laden with nitrites that will create nitrosamines.
Meanwhile, though most places are switching to chloramine treatment, chlorinated water has generated gobs of carcinogens because the very active chlorine atom displaces hydrogen in organic compounds remaining in the water to form all manner of highly nasty stuff. Yet our governments have actively approved of this practice, again, because the immediate risk of people flopping over dead from bacterial contamination was greater than the longer-term risks of cancers of unknown origin.
Our government knowingly exposes us to increased cancer risks in a variety of ways on the basis of cost-benefit-analysis; and does not require our water taps and foods that are contaminated in this fashion to bear warnings or placards.
I would challenge them to show ANY practical increase in cancer risk above background risks (e.g carcinogenesis from background radiation and other causes, etc.) for the studied population resulting from the extremely tiny amount of tobacco-specific nitrosamines present in e-liquids.
True, there is no threshold for determining when any potential carcinogen is actually carcinogenic. Likely there are many other factors that determine this for any given individual. But the compounds we inhale daily in an internal-combustion-driven modern society, and the food we eat that has been covered with pesticides, injected with artificial hormones and then preserved with nitrites among other things dwarf any carcinogenic exposure from vaping.
