+1 Switched. As a chemist I agree totally. Flavors are the biggest risk and uncertainty in vaping. The custard note diketones, aldehydes and similarly reactive compounds have been known to be a problem for food proccessing workers for a long time. Diacetyl is simply the high profile case, and while it is good that flavor suppliers are removing diacetyl, they are likely replacing it with similar compounds. So it may be only the appearance of genuine concern for vapors, and in truth they are banking on our lack of chemical knowledge and mistaken thinking that removing diacetyl will solve the issue entirely. NOT TRUE! Linda is, as far as I can tell, the only one right now with genuine concern and who is doing something about it, and I applaud her wholeheartedly.
It would be one thing if the lung issues that arise are irritation to the tissue. This may happen, but the real problem seems to be that the affected lung tissue just dies, never to regenerate, and it is cumulative and gradual. You may simply experience shortness of breath at first. By the time it is emergent, the only recourse, if you live, is a lung transplant. They cannot treat this. Not trying to scare anyone, but this is what diacetyl has done to food workers, particularly microwave popcorn workers. The other flavor compounds in this class have caused problems too, but I suspect diacetyl became the problem it is because the US microwave popcorn market is so huge.
Meat flavor compounds are also in this class, and so I have no interest in the meat flavors offered by some flavor vendors.
I also suspect someone at some point will be hospitalized due to cinnamon (cinnamaldehyde) inhalation. Cinnamaldehyde is a known lung irritant, and will cause blisters in the mouth, throat, etc. I get nervous when vendors try to see how hot they can make their cinnamon juices, and the health forum here has many posts from people getting sores and difficulty breathing who are surprised that it is likely their Cinnabomb, Cinnacide, or some other hot cinn juice. And this is no more an allergy to cinnamon than blisters from sulfuric acid are an allergy. Its a chemical burn, plain and simple.
I do not have a list of flavors we should not vape, nor is one likely to be readily available (if someone finds one pls post!). I do have criteria for flavors though. If they:
-dry my mouth and throat out a lot,
-create sores,
-cause a lot of coughing,
-cause shortness of breath,
-generate a lot of mucus,
I will not vape it. I have found Linda's flavors in general have the least number of these problems. I do like many Capellas flavors, and took advantage of the current 5 or 3 sale, but a few have caused coughing issues...Milk Choc Toffee is one example, which is too bad since it is delicious. Others may not have issues with it. I also rarely go above 10% flavor, no matter how weak the flavor is, as that will introduce too much PG in the juice, in general.
