@Mark
The best option would be safety/toxicity analysis studies to be run first on pre-clinical animal models then human clinical studies. This is, most likely, years away from occurring. I agree with the US thing completely, I'd much rather be a vaper living in the UK right now (and I hear the weather's lovely).
Yes, at least there are *some* lab tests done on UK products. This system isn't perfect but it's better than nothing. The ideal would probably be the current TS testing regime plus a trade body with compulsory testing for its members' products at preset intervals.
Did you know the FDA have actively prevented clinical trials on ecigs, by the way? I'm sure that helps to instill even more confidence in them. Don't worry, the MHRA over here are similarly competent. And yes, the weather here is good for some reason, no idea why.
@Banjo
I only know of two suppliers who maintain a proper lab testing sked on their product, eSmoke in the US and Intellicig in the UK. To be honest it costs them a great deal of money, although I believe that their particular schedules are perhaps overly comprehensive. I would hope that a trade body could negotiate volume discounts. I'm not sure about the Chinese manufacturers, one or two of them operate to the same high standard according to various people in a position to know. You can't make a blanket statement about industries over there because some are obviously competent, and some Chinese industries are among the worst in the world, with thousands of deaths from deliberate contamination for the purpose of dumping wrongly-bought materials. You can't have much confidence in materials sourced from a country where they can actually contemplate dumping plastics manufacturing ingredients in baby milk formula in order to just use the stuff up. That wouldn't play over here, thankfully, so it basically means you have to rely on the individual factory's own ethics. OK so I guess it's the same here, in reality, as there is little or no regulation.
@PaulC
We know that regular inhalation of diacetyl causes permanent lung damage. We know that the flavor industry knew about this in 1994 due to illness among their own staff, but kept quiet about it and did not even note contra-indications or safety measures on their packaging until large numbers of people in industries down the line fell ill and the issue could no longer be covered up (see the oral evidence given to the OHSA hearings on YouTube linked in a previous post).
The question is - how much is too much? Nobody knows. Apparently if you're a regular popcorn eater you need to be worried, though - so it can't be that much... Same as for paraffin, if you use it as a regular laxative then you are in danger of breathing in enough to contract a lung condition.
@SimpleSins
I'm just curious as to your take on things, Roly, since you do seem to have a pragmatic and reasoned view of safety. Do you feel that vaping diacetyl all day is safer than cigarette smoking? Since it is a component of several different flavors, it's easy to envision vaping it in one flavor or another over the course of an entire day, several days a week. So is vaping still better than cigarettes at that point?
I can't possibly answer that, SS, because the fact of the matter is that there is nobody in the world who knows the answer to that question. It is, of course, exactly the sort of thing that government agencies who are ostensibly tasked with looking after public safety should be working on - but good luck with that.
You could take the personal decision that:
1. Any amount is too much. We shouldn't be inhaling any diacetyl at all. Or paraffin of course. Or some other stuff we don't yet know about, in all probability.
2. Or: We should try to minimise the amounts of these contaminants, eliminating them entirely is just not possible given the unregulated state of the industry at present.
3. Or: the amounts we inhale are so tiny they can't hurt.
I go for #2 but the decision has to be yours alone. I'm fairly old now so basically it doesn't matter that much. If I were young, and especially with a young family, I might go for #1 - but how to ensure that without just using unflavored liquid, I don't know. DIY is fairly safe even with flavors, if you stick to 100% natural ingredients like pure plant extracts. I've been hitting pure peppermint oil hard for nearly a year and have no qualms at all about doing that.
Nothing is absolutely safe though - for example even non-smokers are exposed to nicotine, there are measurable levels in tomatoes additional to the natural content, especially in ketchup, and in tea, believe it or not, due to residual pesticide levels that include nicotine. Whatever you consume in an urban environment is contaminated in some way.
As far as option #3 goes, I don't believe this can be correct, since apparently workers exposed to very low levels but on a regular basis have contracted lung disease from diacetyl.
One answer is: show me the lab tests. Show me the results of tests that *specifically* looked for things like paraffin, diacetyl, and acrolein after heating. I don't think there is such a thing as a safe level of inhalation for those materials.
Until suppliers get real and have their stuff tested properly - we just don't know. All the promises and assurances in the world are worth precisely nothing without the hard evidence - lab tests. All you can do is source from someone who at least knows what the problems are and has probably done what they can to eliminate them. There aren't many of those, as that level of knowledge is beyond 99% of suppliers. All most suppliers do is get an assurance from their flavor supplier. You can decide what that's worth.
@Fiddles
When my unflavored juice gets here I'll try vaping just that until the dust settles.
There won't be any answers on this for years, since governments are doing everything they can to block ecigs, and the trade as a whole has no interest in spending money to assuage buyer's fears since people grab the product as fast as they can stack it on the shelves. You can start an ecig company now and get to over $1m turnover in Year 1 if you know what you're doing. It's a sellers' market.
People who are actively concerned about these issues try to buy from suppliers who have shown some sort of inclination toward making quality control more than just a promise. There are some names in this thread of the more responsible/knowledgeable ones, it's your choice.
Don't ask me to comment on who is good or not. Just ask for the lab tests.
You say your product is good? Prove it.
