As I've already said, if there were a way to prevent dud batteries being inserted into mods, we would try to promote that, as it is the core of the issue.
However, this is impossible. It is simply not possible to prevent dud batteries being inserted into gastight mods. The solution is to do something about the gastight mods, as that is simple, achievable, and the basic duty of the manufacturer.
It's a bit like car manufacturing: if you build a car these days it has to be able to survive normal misuse and collisions without severely injuring or killing the occupants. There are regulations for this now, since otherwise dangerous cars would get onto the road. Civil liability is a factor in preventing manufacturers selling faulty cars but it doesn't stop them getting onto the road in the first place.
So: a new car design needs to survive normal low-speed traffic collisions without killing the occupants, since low-speed collisions will always take place. Cars will get rear-ended at 20 mph and you cannot stop that, whatever you do. You can try education, or making rules about having a 50-yard gap in traffic, or whatever else you like - but rearend crashes are always going to happen. Trying to stop rearenders is a useless waste of time when the fix is easy: build the car correctly.
All modern cars will survive a 20 mph rear end collision without the fuel tank rupturing because that is what the regulations call for, plus anyone selling a car that kills its occupants in the event of an expected and survivable collision of this type will be liable in law. As a result, when a few years back some vehicles were found to burn up or kill the occupants after a low-speed rearend such as is normal in traffic, because the fuel tank ruptured far too easily due to faulty vehicle design, the manufacturers had to pay millions in damages. A vehicle has to protect its occupants in case of a traffic event that is foreseeable and which any other vehicle will survive without injuring the passengers. The Pinto etc were just bad designs and may not have been tested properly.
The same is true for an ecig mod - insertion of faulty batteries is a normal event and to be expected, and in some cases will result in an explosive failure event. The mod, being a consumer device placed directly in front of the face, and partially inserted into the mouth, needs to survive a known risk that has numerous previous examples, without severely injuring the user. In view of the fact these incidents are known to occur, and that injury is easy to prevent by design improvements, the supplier of such a device will have the same defence in law as the manufacturer of the defective vehicles: none.
ECF has a duty to (a) protect its members, and (b) do what it can to advocate for the resolution of an issue that will affect the rights of millions of people.
'Dangerous exploding e-cigarettes' will be used as an excuse to ban or restrict ecigs. Here is a quote from a newspaper report on one of the recent blowups, where the victim's wife told them: "I heard a sound like a gunshot, then my husband screaming. I ran into the room and his mouth and face were on fire".
Of course, she could have made it all up and it's a conspiracy. Unfortunately the global media who reported it, the Fire Department, the local Police, and the hospital where the victim spent a week would need to be involved, which seems a bit far-fetched. Want a few more juicy quotes like the one above to help out our opponents? Good - just deny there's a problem and deny there's an easy fix.
Tick one of the following answers, whichever you like:
a. We can try to educate the entire world's ecig users, stop the million dollar counterfeit battery trade, ensure that only genuine batteries are sold, and absolutely stop a bad battery ever being put into a gastight mod anywhere. (This would require a staff of 500 people, a budget of $25m, and even a government wouldn't be able to stop the problem despite those resources.)
b. We can try to educate the very small number of people who supply obsolete equipment, and point out to them that the situation is entirely different from when they first brought out their designs, since now it is a simple fact that dangerous fake batteries will be used without the knowledge of the user, and as a result their designs need a simple upgrade in order to safeguard the users. (Easily achievable with few resources and no cost to anyone since the buyer pays.)
Another question you could answer, if you like. In the following situation, exactly whose fault is it and who will be liable in the civil suit resulting:-
An experienced vaper introduces a friend to vaping. He owns a particular make of mod that takes two batteries for 6 volt vaping and tells his friend that this is the way to go. He buys all the supplies himself for his friend, on his own credit card, and thus has all the receipts for the purchases and knows that this was the only equipment used and that no other materials were used subsequently by his friend. He buys the mod, the battery charger, and two sets of batteries, which are of the safer-chemistry type and what he himself uses - all from the vendor, who is also the manufacturer of the mod. His friend is very happy with the result. However a week later the mod explodes in his face, causing the most severe damages that we have full details of to date. Apparently the top end of the mod blew off into the mouth and face. (This is not the Niceville, Florida incident by the way.)
Initially the injuries and treatments include the following, but a series of operations will be required in the future (and omitting details such as a fire in the room):
Concussion.
Taken in ambulance to ER.
Sedated.
Minor procedure to remove several broken teeth and foreign materials from within the mouth.
Operation to remove metal and plastic shrapnel from the back of the throat.
Sedated and intubated (breathing tube inserted down throat).
Operation to remove shrapnel from the face.
Dental operation to stabilise damaged teeth.
Scheduling of operations on face by plastic surgeon.
Scheduling of operations by plastic surgeon to rebuild broken lower jaw.
Scheduling of operation by opthalmic surgeon to remove shrapnel from surface of eye (sight appears undamaged at this time, though vision is affected due to foreign matter embedded in the surface of the eye).
Whose fault? Who will pay? (Medical costs, stress on partner, incidental costs, major cost of injury, fire damage, cost of effect on future life, punitive damages for selling a device that was unsafe despite there being a history of such incidents and despite the fix being easy to implement.) Medical costs alone might come to hundreds of thousands.
Of course, this could be a conspiracy or a scam. It would be interesting to get the view of the local police department, fire department, hospital, and ambulance service on that. Not to mention the spouse.
Whose fault is it? I would have thought that was obvious. What is the very easy and simple fix? Equally obvious.
What will happen if the fix is not implemented? The rights of hundreds of thousands of vapers now, and potentially millions in the future, will be adversely affected.
What is the opinion of the family members of the victims? What they tell me about their feelings toward a few people who don't want to change the design of some obsolete devices cannot be printed here. The words greed, stupidity, madness and a lot of others with four letters feature prominently.
I've already stated in public that if an ECF member is injured and comes to us with a solid case that absolutely cannot be fraud, and is supported by clear evidence by the hospital and local police, we will provide whatever assistance is required in the civil suit resulting. So if the mod makers don't change, they stand to lose their house and the shirt off their back.
They'll need to change their ways or face the consequences. We are talking about a handful of people who are going to cause a stack of problems for hundreds of thousands of others. This problem has been known about for around four years now, and we have have been warning about it for two years. The EMSS is one year old now and no real advance has been made. Time to do something more concrete.
However, this is impossible. It is simply not possible to prevent dud batteries being inserted into gastight mods. The solution is to do something about the gastight mods, as that is simple, achievable, and the basic duty of the manufacturer.
It's a bit like car manufacturing: if you build a car these days it has to be able to survive normal misuse and collisions without severely injuring or killing the occupants. There are regulations for this now, since otherwise dangerous cars would get onto the road. Civil liability is a factor in preventing manufacturers selling faulty cars but it doesn't stop them getting onto the road in the first place.
So: a new car design needs to survive normal low-speed traffic collisions without killing the occupants, since low-speed collisions will always take place. Cars will get rear-ended at 20 mph and you cannot stop that, whatever you do. You can try education, or making rules about having a 50-yard gap in traffic, or whatever else you like - but rearend crashes are always going to happen. Trying to stop rearenders is a useless waste of time when the fix is easy: build the car correctly.
All modern cars will survive a 20 mph rear end collision without the fuel tank rupturing because that is what the regulations call for, plus anyone selling a car that kills its occupants in the event of an expected and survivable collision of this type will be liable in law. As a result, when a few years back some vehicles were found to burn up or kill the occupants after a low-speed rearend such as is normal in traffic, because the fuel tank ruptured far too easily due to faulty vehicle design, the manufacturers had to pay millions in damages. A vehicle has to protect its occupants in case of a traffic event that is foreseeable and which any other vehicle will survive without injuring the passengers. The Pinto etc were just bad designs and may not have been tested properly.
The same is true for an ecig mod - insertion of faulty batteries is a normal event and to be expected, and in some cases will result in an explosive failure event. The mod, being a consumer device placed directly in front of the face, and partially inserted into the mouth, needs to survive a known risk that has numerous previous examples, without severely injuring the user. In view of the fact these incidents are known to occur, and that injury is easy to prevent by design improvements, the supplier of such a device will have the same defence in law as the manufacturer of the defective vehicles: none.
ECF has a duty to (a) protect its members, and (b) do what it can to advocate for the resolution of an issue that will affect the rights of millions of people.
'Dangerous exploding e-cigarettes' will be used as an excuse to ban or restrict ecigs. Here is a quote from a newspaper report on one of the recent blowups, where the victim's wife told them: "I heard a sound like a gunshot, then my husband screaming. I ran into the room and his mouth and face were on fire".
Of course, she could have made it all up and it's a conspiracy. Unfortunately the global media who reported it, the Fire Department, the local Police, and the hospital where the victim spent a week would need to be involved, which seems a bit far-fetched. Want a few more juicy quotes like the one above to help out our opponents? Good - just deny there's a problem and deny there's an easy fix.
Tick one of the following answers, whichever you like:
a. We can try to educate the entire world's ecig users, stop the million dollar counterfeit battery trade, ensure that only genuine batteries are sold, and absolutely stop a bad battery ever being put into a gastight mod anywhere. (This would require a staff of 500 people, a budget of $25m, and even a government wouldn't be able to stop the problem despite those resources.)
b. We can try to educate the very small number of people who supply obsolete equipment, and point out to them that the situation is entirely different from when they first brought out their designs, since now it is a simple fact that dangerous fake batteries will be used without the knowledge of the user, and as a result their designs need a simple upgrade in order to safeguard the users. (Easily achievable with few resources and no cost to anyone since the buyer pays.)
Another question you could answer, if you like. In the following situation, exactly whose fault is it and who will be liable in the civil suit resulting:-
An experienced vaper introduces a friend to vaping. He owns a particular make of mod that takes two batteries for 6 volt vaping and tells his friend that this is the way to go. He buys all the supplies himself for his friend, on his own credit card, and thus has all the receipts for the purchases and knows that this was the only equipment used and that no other materials were used subsequently by his friend. He buys the mod, the battery charger, and two sets of batteries, which are of the safer-chemistry type and what he himself uses - all from the vendor, who is also the manufacturer of the mod. His friend is very happy with the result. However a week later the mod explodes in his face, causing the most severe damages that we have full details of to date. Apparently the top end of the mod blew off into the mouth and face. (This is not the Niceville, Florida incident by the way.)
Initially the injuries and treatments include the following, but a series of operations will be required in the future (and omitting details such as a fire in the room):
Concussion.
Taken in ambulance to ER.
Sedated.
Minor procedure to remove several broken teeth and foreign materials from within the mouth.
Operation to remove metal and plastic shrapnel from the back of the throat.
Sedated and intubated (breathing tube inserted down throat).
Operation to remove shrapnel from the face.
Dental operation to stabilise damaged teeth.
Scheduling of operations on face by plastic surgeon.
Scheduling of operations by plastic surgeon to rebuild broken lower jaw.
Scheduling of operation by opthalmic surgeon to remove shrapnel from surface of eye (sight appears undamaged at this time, though vision is affected due to foreign matter embedded in the surface of the eye).
Whose fault? Who will pay? (Medical costs, stress on partner, incidental costs, major cost of injury, fire damage, cost of effect on future life, punitive damages for selling a device that was unsafe despite there being a history of such incidents and despite the fix being easy to implement.) Medical costs alone might come to hundreds of thousands.
Of course, this could be a conspiracy or a scam. It would be interesting to get the view of the local police department, fire department, hospital, and ambulance service on that. Not to mention the spouse.
Whose fault is it? I would have thought that was obvious. What is the very easy and simple fix? Equally obvious.
What will happen if the fix is not implemented? The rights of hundreds of thousands of vapers now, and potentially millions in the future, will be adversely affected.
What is the opinion of the family members of the victims? What they tell me about their feelings toward a few people who don't want to change the design of some obsolete devices cannot be printed here. The words greed, stupidity, madness and a lot of others with four letters feature prominently.
I've already stated in public that if an ECF member is injured and comes to us with a solid case that absolutely cannot be fraud, and is supported by clear evidence by the hospital and local police, we will provide whatever assistance is required in the civil suit resulting. So if the mod makers don't change, they stand to lose their house and the shirt off their back.
They'll need to change their ways or face the consequences. We are talking about a handful of people who are going to cause a stack of problems for hundreds of thousands of others. This problem has been known about for around four years now, and we have have been warning about it for two years. The EMSS is one year old now and no real advance has been made. Time to do something more concrete.
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, by a customer of course ("but OH, they used the wrong batteries")
