PPG is Butoxy poly propylene glycol, not the stuff we use. I don't know much about PPG but pure PG is about as safe as you can get for internal use (can cause skin and mucous membrane dryness/irritation but nothing serious even in high doses). It is rapidly broken down into lactic acid, which is processed by the liver very easily and efficiently (it is in your bloodstream all the time, it's part of anaerobic muscle respiration). Its long-term exposure (via vapor/aerosol) safety has been very thoroughly investigated in multiple studies with no major health concerns (rats exposed to very high vapor concentrations for 6 hours a day 5 days a week for 2 years showed only minor mucous membrane dryness/damage, mostly at the tips of their noses, and even that healed within a short period after exposure stopped, upon dissection no mutagenic effects or organ damage was found. PM me your e-mail if you would like the full report).
As for china, they seem to be mass producing the stuff, meaning they probably have a manufacturing process that they use every time (it would cost infinitely more to have an educated person revise the process than to pay the peasant workers to continue pumping it out), and why would they redesign their process if it is already working? Unskilled labor costs nothing in China. Of course we all know China doesn't have the best track record for production control, but hazardous product contamination (that wasn't intentionally used in the first place) is still a VERY rare occurrence when you consider how much stuff is constantly being mass-produced there (%age of dangerous products vs total production is very very low), so this doesn't worry me any more than any other consumable product made in China. Of course testing every single batch would be ideal, but the cost would be rather extreme for an operation like Steve's, and if he isn't making a profit then puresmoker won't be in business anyway, so a one time chemical analysis is good enough for me (you may disagree, but if I had a small website selling supplies and someone told me I have to spend a large portion of my profits testing every single batch when they are made using the same process every time I would tell them to go suck one). Besides, I don't know of a single company, even in the US, that has every single product they make in an assembly line professionally analyzed, perhaps periodically to make sure everything is still going smoothe but never every single product, their overhead costs would be
through the roof.
oh and for the "not a lot of money to be made in e-cigs," since I joined this forum on the 1st of november, the number of members has multiplied rapidly, Steve has employees helping him with the ever-increasing workload, and
njoy e-cigs have been spotted in retail store isles, gas stations, and malls all over the US. This is a rapidly growing industry that is already in the retail market and shows no signs of stopping (yet). At the same time though, a single death or diagnosed illness that is attributed to e-smoking (whether true or not) can bring that all crashing down in a heartbeat, but if no health concerns are raised, e-smoking may have a bright future since the retail market now has our backs (local governments are getting tax revenue from it and no politician in his right mind would crusade against a harmless product, pissing off registered voters and campaign contributors, though if there was a major public health concern he would be seen as a defender of public safety and thus be as relentless as the anti-drug and anti-smoking movements). Who knows, I'm no economist and I'm no politician, I just want to know what is in the stuff.
