Eliquid approval

[scintar]

Presently, Dekang supplies over 90% of the world's demand for electronic cigarette liquid (e-liquid) so i would say that these are the people that need to be contacted for more tests.
As outwest has said the cost will rise if independent testing were done. One large reason people have made the switch to a VP is to save money over the ever rising cost of the analog.

Belew is a copy from SGS where Dekang had an independent company (SGS) do a safety report. Mabe we can start there and add on to the in place standards?

http://www.slideshare.net/guest6b24c9/ec502

 

[Kate]

Heed, my view is that if the manufacturer's seal is broken the product is potentially contaminated and should not be sold. I'd prefer RtV to deal with mass manufacturers, not small scale back kitchen operators, there's too much risk (in my opinion). I also doubt that small scale operators would have the funds to support lab test costs.

Is it known for sure that Dekang make 90% of eliquid? They certainly are one of the biggest players and hopefully will be interested in adding RtV approval to their credibility.

I've noticed that a/some Chinese manufacturers seem to be keen to show that their product is of good quality by producing lab test certificates. RtV could provide that service with the added bonus of being independent.

Here's a link for Dekang if anyone is interested - Yunnan Dekang Biotechnology Co., Ltd

All your thoughts are very welcome here, thanks for your views, please keep on adding ideas

 

[Heed]

Heed, my view is that if the manufacturer's seal is broken the product is potentially contaminated and should not be sold.

I agree, but the problem still exists.

There is a severe lack of response to this very question in the suppliers forum:

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...forum/11851-innocent-all-juice-suppliers.html

If this is indicative of the level of practice whereby liquid is having the seal broken by the retailer, then there's going to be very little value in verifying the big manufacturers since a large swathe of the product they ship is likely to have the seal broken at some point.

Maybe it will push the resellers into a different practice, but I think it's an issue with what you've proposed. Product identity is at risk and if that can't be maintained the "stamp of approval" will become less meaningful and/or used on a product that hasn't actually been tested.

 

[hedgehog]

I don't sell liquid yet, but soon will, and I would definitely be interested in this kind of approval system.

As Kate said the testing costs would probably be prohibitive for smaller suppliers, so the ideal solution is to go the source and convince the main manufacturers to participate. As many do already seem eager to prove their testing, certificates etc, perhaps this would not be a big deal for them. And an independent endorsement would give a very positive boost to their sales.

 

[Smokingfreely]

Heed - I doubt very much that there are a lot of resellers cutting their juice or rebottling it. I am ordering in e-juice to resell and have gotten many proposals from many manufacturers (device manufacturers, most of them end up using terms like "have made" or "order in" when I have specific requests, so I don't think any of them are making the juice.) What I'm finding is that there is very little difference in price per ml for 50ml bottles and 10ml bottles. If you were to order 50ml bottles and rebottle them in 10ml bottles that you purchased seperately, it would actually cost you more.

 

[ISAWHIM]

You would need FDA, WHO, and ISO standardized medical grade labs to operate this business. Not to mention that you would need billion dollar life insurance, since you are making world-wide claims of health, which is a high liability. (EG, if your labs are wrong, it is not only a few customers that sue you, it is all the corporations who you gave approval to, all the sellers who are now sitting on losses from unsellable stock, and the customers who now suffer the ailments of an "Oops, human error. Our independent labs forgot to calibrate their non-medical, non-ISO, testing machine, or mixed-up results, or lied, saying they performed the $800.00 test, but they actually skipped that batch, since they only test 1:100 submissions.")

No offence, but having a UK based organization, to regulate a world-market, or dictate a US consumer market, makes as much sense as having a Chinese based organization doing the same thing to the UK. I am still confused about the intent, looking for customer support, when you need to be pitching this idea to the government, looking for US and UK grants and loans. But you are trying to reinvent the wheel, as all of these agencies already exist.

There would be no consumer trust or relevance in a "New agency", created to bypass approval of age-old agencies which already exist. It would seem as shady as the "Organic society", who approves non-organic foods all the time. (They still use pesticides and chemical gardening and processing, just a lot less.)

I am sure your heart is in the right place, but your actions are not. As consumers, it is up to us, to demand the suppliers provide this info, in the form of asking, and refusal to purchase from those who do not provide the required testing.

However, if you are going to create an active group of "Class action lawsuits", for those who continue to operate without the requested testing... You are in the correct place. Customers don't form agencies, groups with large backing and equipment and investors do that. Customers form groups, to protect other future customers, from sales-claims that are fraudulent, dangerous, and deceptive.

"U.S. group sues Coke over VitaminWater health claims"
EG... U.S. group sues Coke over VitaminWater health claims | U.S. | Reuters

Doesn't matter what society thinks is wrong, the "Regulatory associations that exist", already have the final word. All those people lost money, thinking they were going to get money in a useless lawsuit.

You have so much knowledge, it would be a shame to see it wasted, expending all your energy on the impossible.

It is better to label everything as "Unknown", than it is to pretend that science behind the math of the formulas is, "Safe". More people will place themselves at risk if they think it is "Safe", than if they were to approach it with caution, being "Unknown".

However... identifying things that are absolutely, "Harmful", is another story. (That is the WHO and FDA's job. No other types of personal/commercial/consumer agencies are allowed to say otherwise.)

No manufacture wants to wait for months while every possible mixture is tested, approved, and then able to go to market. Especially when they have already been tested, over and over and over again. At the moment it is issues with the production of unknown mixtures, and lack of labels, and home-brewers that are the safety issue. No organization can track these small brewers, and small brewers can't afford the expensive testing and long wait-periods. (Especially when they can't understand the reports, and have no idea how to make changes, and waste money shooting in the dark, in hopes of finding something not-harmful to mix. You can only do so much with a turkey-baster and farberware.)

As an individual group, with no power or money, you will not have any influence on anyone but those garage-mixers. They will just make a new website, move to a new mall, find new friends, or block your phone-numbers, mails, and e-mails. Without records, it would be difficult to prove that you had not tampered with the shipped items. (You as in, one agency, without government control and standards.)

I am not even sure what I would be supporting here.

 

[LuckySevens4U]

Heed - I doubt very much that there are a lot of resellers cutting their juice or rebottling it. I am ordering in e-juice to resell and have gotten many proposals from many manufacturers (device manufacturers, most of them end up using terms like "have made" or "order in" when I have specific requests, so I don't think any of them are making the juice.) What I'm finding is that there is very little difference in price per ml for 50ml bottles and 10ml bottles. If you were to order 50ml bottles and rebottle them in 10ml bottles that you purchased seperately, it would actually cost you more.

I know of one so called supplier inparticular who has openly admitted she actually makes her own juice and sells it. She buys it in bulk and make all her own flavors out of it with Lorans flavorings. This personally disgusts me. 8-o

 

[Mr Mojorisin]

Right to Vape ................ Vegsoc Approved Approval by the Veg Soc reassures consumers that the products meet the independent standards of a consumer organisation, For an annual fee the producer gets independent testing and approval, the use of the 'approved' trademark on packaging and marketing materials, some product promotion by the society, links, inclusion in a product database and the general goodwill and trust generated by a reputable consumer group..........
.

I think you are on the right track with modeling after an existing organization. I am not familiar with Veg Soc but finding someone that has done something similar to what you are trying to do can be very helpful. Once you find one (be it Veg Soc or another organization(s)) I would bet that they would be very helpful and a great resource regarding the pitfalls and issues that may present themselves.

Unfortunately private QA/QC organizations (especially those funded by the industry) often fall to the pressures of those funding them which in turn dillutes the real mission of the organization. Sometimes the "seal of approval" eventually becomes nothing more than proof that the seller paid a fee.

Thinking the entire process, criteria and structure through will be critical to the success and long term relevance of any such organization. I think you are correct in that you are not creating an organization until you know exactly what it will do and how it will do it. Sometimes people put the cart before the horse.

Proper Planning ........

 

[Angela]

No offence, but having a UK based organization, to regulate a world-market, or dictate a US consumer market, makes as much sense as having a Chinese based organization doing the same thing to the UK.

I had to read that 3 times to make sure that I hadn't mis-read or misundersood what you were saying.

I am actually trying really hard at the moment to be polite with my reply, but I'm not sure it is possible. It really is about time that some US citizens (and please, I do not wish to tar all Americans with the same brush) realised that the USA is not the only place in the civilized world. GRRRR

 

[Heed]

Heed - I doubt very much that there are a lot of resellers cutting their juice or rebottling it. I am ordering in e-juice to resell and have gotten many proposals from many manufacturers (device manufacturers, most of them end up using terms like "have made" or "order in" when I have specific requests, so I don't think any of them are making the juice.) What I'm finding is that there is very little difference in price per ml for 50ml bottles and 10ml bottles. If you were to order 50ml bottles and rebottle them in 10ml bottles that you purchased seperately, it would actually cost you more.

I'm talking about half kilo bottles (around 500 ml) and larger -- there's a big price break when you go to those sizes. Most wholesalers deal in these quantities or more.

 

[Kate]

Absolutely, I agree Mr Mojo. Maintaining integrity and representing the interests of consumers is a primary concern.

My view is that ideally authorities will regulate to the extent that this endorsement will become unnecessary. This is a stop gap measure for voluntary standards until regulation catches up and does a better job. It certainly won't cover all possibilities and keep everyone happy, there's only so much independents can do but it's international, by us and for us at least.

 

[0ogier]

I've got to side with ISAWHIM and Mr Mojorisin.

In an ideal world, I believe it would be a great idea , as long as it wasnt funded by the people it was meant to control.

Regards

0ogier

 

[Kate]

How should it be paid for?

 

[0ogier]

Your right Kate,

But looking at it, through the eyes of an outsider.
What they would see is a Regulatory Body Funded by the Companies they are regulating. ie It would appear self serving


In my opinion ,(and opinion only) financing, would have to be independant of the "industry". be it from government or other sources.

Im sorry cant quite get the words to sound right.

regards

0ogier

 

[Kate]

The responsibility for quality assurance rests with manufacturers. The World Health Organisation holds manufacturers responsible for making sure their product is fit for purpose.

A community run voluntary organisation is about as neutral as you can get without government involvement. I think it's reasonable to charge for the cost of testing and approval. Conspiracy allegations or bias by vested interests are issues we will no doubt have to address.

Why would government fund private profit making ventures?

Consumers will fund it in the long run anyway by paying higher prices for the product.

 

[Smokingfreely]

I am a little leary of all the new interest in setting up various powerless bureaucracies regarding e-cigs. In the name of halting regulation from legitimate agencies with the power to regulate, we're now interested in setting up little show bureaucracies. Either you believe that somehow e-cigs should be held to a higher standard than cigarettes are, or you don't.

That said, if the intention here is simply customer assurance provided by an independent party, than there's no harm here. But anyone who thinks such a stamp of approval really means anything for any legal purposes is simply mistaken. It won't make one bit of difference to the FDA or legistlative bodies that some labs here in the US have verified the ingredients.

If it catches on, and it looks like the legal climate is such that we can sell long enough to warrant the investment in such a test, I'd do it. But I wouldn't recognize this group's authority to do any more than grace me with (or deny me) their seal of approval, and it's unrealistic to believe that anyone would view it in any greater light. It all really depends on what you're hoping to accomplish.

 

[Kate]

What can we realisticly hope to accomplish?

 

[MrHoyle]

Kate,
Excellent idea! I certainly think your on the right track here. In these early stages of ecigs there are obvious discrepancies in quality of not only products but also the liquids themselves. I am already making my personal choices based on the input and approval of the people on these boards. Taking it to the next step and actually creating a regulatory board of some kind seems like an obvious next step. My only concern is the credibility of this approval. My instinct says that you will be opening yourself to attacks from all sides by trying to put yourselves in the "Official approval" category. I think a more reasonable approach would be to simply maintain public opinion polls and reccomend products based on the community views as a whole. Being reccomended by RtV and e-cigarette-forum would have sold me on products and I'm sure that tag alone would be worth striving(or even paying) for by virtually any of the manufacturers out there.

 

[Tom09]

Dekang had an independent company (SGS) do a safety report.

The referenced file from Dekang Biotech is not a safety report. It’s a Safety Data Sheet (MSDS/SDS), a completely different animal.
It’s just a formal paper which has to accompany every chemical (here Dekang’s Cherry Flavor Essence) that is sold on the international market. Meaning, no liquid has actually been chemically analyzed to compile this MSDS/SDS sheet.

All the producer (Dekang Biotech) had to do was to send a list of the ingredients in his Cherry Flavor Essence to SGS. The latter company does all kinds of tests and service. Here, it was only contracted to compile this formal sheet (do cut and paste from a data base) and to certify that this MSDS/SDS sheet, the piece of paper and not the actual liquid, would be conform with the requirements of some international standards.

Go on and read the paper entitled "SGS", which was uploaded from the same user at www(.)slideshare.net/guest6b24c9/sgsglhgr080302595-cm, also here at the Dekang webpage www(.)yndekang.com/English/certificate_sgs.html [sorry, can’t post links]. This paper has the header "SGS Test Report". Service requested by Dekang Biotech was the MSDS/SDS sheet to accompany it’s product (the Cherry Flavor Essence) and it is actually certified that the piece of paper is in accordence to some standards. That’s all it is.

Now, however, Dekang has some piece of paper and a respected name to put on the web site, some suppliers go on to use Dekang’s utterely impressive Cherry Flavor Essence "SGS Test Report" to give the impression as if the liquid had been somhow tested and certified. That’s completly bull, smokescreen, misleading.
It may well be that Dekang Biotech does indeed have some kind of analytical control in place. This type of "certificate", however, does not bear any evidence in support that this could be true.

 

[ISAWHIM]

I had to read that 3 times to make sure that I hadn't mis-read or misundersood what you were saying.

I am actually trying really hard at the moment to be polite with my reply, but I'm not sure it is possible. It really is about time that some US citizens (and please, I do not wish to tar all Americans with the same brush) realised that the USA is not the only place in the civilized world. GRRRR

I was trying to say... For the US... (WHO is not only US.) "World Health Org".

Creating an organization in the UK, for issues related to FDA and WHO, holds no water... Great, a UK company/org says it is safe, so it must be up to American standards and safe for American consumption. Nothing works that way. Just as the UK would have an issue with some American agency, like the FDA, shutting down what they believe are "Safe", or acceptable companies.

Talking about creating a group, (In the UK), to regulate World issues, through enforcement, is just impossible.

I am not saying the US is the only place that exists. I am saying exactly what you are thinking... I am not going to allow a foreign country to dictate what I can and can't do, by allowing them to extinguish things that my country finds acceptable. (On the reverse, I also don't want another country to continue to feed us things which our country finds to be unsafe, taking our dollars in exchange for our death. I can find better things to waste money on, like McDonalds. That way, we don't fall further into debit, and kill ourselves in the process.)

This is being discussed on the net, which makes it a world-topic. However, the one controlling the topic, is from the UK, population 60,943,912 compared to US, population 303,824,640. The math just doesn't support the justification of control. (World population 6,706,993,152)

UK is less than 1% of the world. (UK is around 20% of US population.)
US is around 5% of the world.

China has a population of around 1,330,044,544 and that is 19%... and like I stated, I don't want them dictating what we find acceptable.

I wasn't trying to offend anyone, from any country. However, we all have separate views and different reasons for allowing some things over others. This is one of those things which one place may find tolerable as is, but another place may find it completely unacceptable.

If it was unacceptable in the US, for consumers, but allowed in China, we should be able to sell it to China. Not be shut-down because we don't allow it here for consumers. I don't think the UK would stop manufacturing this stuff if it was found harmful in the UK, but still acceptable in China, or in the US. They just wouldn't sell it to their citizens.

There are many things being manufactured in many countries that are not allowed in the country that they are manufactured in. The WHO and UN jumps-in if there are political issues related to these questionable items. Such as opium, marijuana, hash, coke, uranium devices, cars, CD's, literature, bombs, nutra-sweet, MSG... etc...

But what is being proposed here, is another new, and specific agency, directly for the production and shutting down of large companies who don't follow this "UK based", set of standards and testing.

That is the part I can't swallow... just as you could not swallow the FDA shutting down a local shop in the UK, because they sold something to an American that was not acceptable to the FDA.

We don't need a, "E-cig liquid control group", "Twinkie-filling control group", "Soda-syrup control group", "Gardening control group", "Aspirin control group", "Tooth-paste control group", etc... We, (UK, US, China, etc.), already have a group to handle those things. (I say FDA, because I am American, and that is where the issue lies at the moment. Issues with the FDA does not concern those from the UK, except that they can't sell it to us, if the FDA does not allow it. They can still sell in the UK. I am not sure what regulatory group, besides the WHO, is enforcing the UK, but that is not my concern, I don't live there. I don't care if you are not able to purchase it due to restrictions. I care only if I am not able to purchase it, due to FDA restrictions. That being said, it is my concern that the UK, one of the producers, is not following FDA guidelines. Having a UK, standard, does not translate into FDA standards, and is pointless to anyone but citizens of the UK. The UK will not accept a user/seller regulated union-style body of self control and regulation, based on trust and unregulated independent testing. Just as the US will not accept that form of control.)

In short... This should be in the UK forum, not trying to get world-funds and support for something that would only be UK based. (The UK, would never be allowed to regulate or dictate any world group, they are just too small. That is like having McDonalds regulate the entire food industry.)

The problem here is that this is not a resolution to anything. Just something to consume peoples time, and will get no-one anywhere. Businesses and manufactures would not pay for a "Groups", stamp of approval, if the government does not support and recognize the groups stamp. (Like it was said before, in another post. This would be nothing more than a stamp, to pay for, that had no real weight behind it. Only offering it to large manufactures, and skipping all the home-brewers, which is where all the danger lies. Large manufactures already go out of their way, to ensure they are not killing their customers. It is bad for business. It is the small-guys who don't care, because there is a new one born every second. They only have hundreds of sales, as opposed to the manufactures who have billions of sales.)

WHO and the FDA are here to protect the billions... private groups protect the hundreds. (But it was stated that there was no interest in going after those guys. Thus, the pointless function of having a private group, to do what the existing large groups are already doing.)