We ARE guinea pigs. Let's face it. There is NOT enough information out there to say one way or the other whether vaping is safe, and if not, then what makes it hazardous? We need more research to be done on the effects of inhaling specific ingredients. Vapers seem to hide under the protective umbrella provided by the FDA's view on the INGESTION of the ingredients used, but the FDA has no more information than anyone else about the INHALATION of these substances.
The public is made guinea pigs for ANY product. If you think testing on lab animals or a few dozen carefully chosen human study participants tells us more than real-world reports of adverse effects, then you need to research what happened with Chantix. All "scientific research" is is an educated guess. They don't really know what is going to happen until a product gets out into real-world use and reports come back. We've had 8 years of real-world e-cigarette use and there have been no reports of serious adverse health reactions related to e-cigarettes. Compare that to the FDA MedWatch reports for Chantix and "safe and effective" pharmaceutical nicotine products over the past 8 years.
Do we know if long-term inhalation of the ingredients of e-cigarettes is harmless? No, but we can make an educated guess based on what we do know. PG is approved for human inhalation exposure by the EPA. Fog machines are in use in nightclubs, haunted houses, airline fire training and theaters. If there was a serious issue with exposure, we would have heard of reports of serious adverse effects by workers in those venues. Rats were exposed to PG in massive amounts in the 1940's and did not experience serious adverse effects. Workers in factories that use artificial flavorings are not reporting adverse health effects with the exception of two well-documented chemicals. If exposure to other flavorings caused the same negative health effects as diacetyl, were are the reports?
There just isn't any logical reason to assume e-cigarettes pose nearly the same health hazards as smoking. If you want reassurance that vaping is 100% safe for 100% of users, it's never going to happen, because such a product does not exist. If you want 100% assurance, don't inhale anything foreign into your lungs. Period. NOTHING is 100% safe for 100% of the public. Cigarettes also contain PG, flavorings and nicotine. There is NOTHING in e-cigarettes that we weren't already inhaling by smoking, but plenty is missing from e-cigarettes that we were inhaling from cigarette smoke. We know that the dangers in cigarette smoke aren't from the PG or the flavorings, they are from the toxic chemicals and massive amounts of human carcinogens formed from burning plant matter.
Even if there are some slight risks from vaping, they would still be reasonably safe for the vast majority of users and vastly safer than smoking.
Reducing health risks is the whole point of e-cigarettes, not eliminating health risks. If you want to eliminate health risks, then don't inhale anything but fresh air.
The point is that this is going to take a lot of research and an army of lab rats inhaling lots of compounds to find out what's really going on. Anyone who has already made up their minds on the issue of vaping safety is a fool.
Looking at this thread, it's obvious that vaping is not for everyone. For jtracc, vaping may/may not have contributed to a deterioration in health. Others have reported experiencing ill effects from some ejuices, and having those effects disappear when they switched to organic ejuices. Again, we need a lot more research.
Yet the vast majority report no serious adverse health effects. Again, if even something as benign as peanut butter could kill someone with a severe allergy, how can we expect e-cigarettes to be safe and effective for 100% of the people?
You want to know what's in your juice? Call up your reps and senators and tell them to push for legislation to fund the FDA for testing.
The FDA does not do testing like this, so this would be pointless. It requires manufacturers to pay for the research and then reviews that research. But that is required only of products which wish to claim to cure, treat or mitigate an illness or disease. E-cigarettes do not require that type of approval anymore than traditional cigarettes do. So why should e-cigarette companies pay for proof of safety when there have been no complaints, no reports of serious injury tied to e-cigarette use? Other products pulled by the FDA had numerous reports of serious adverse health effects and the FDA took action after public outcry. That is not the case with e-cigarettes - there is no outcry except from the ANTZ who do not use them. And if you are an FDA-approved drug and have numerous complaints, all they usually do is put on a little black box warning and allow you to keep selling to the public (Chantix, to name just one of many.)
E-cigarettes take a dangerous product and remove exposure to the high levels of the worst toxins and carcinogens. Since they are obviously much safer than the product they intend to replace, unless they cause illness or disease which cigarette use would NOT cause or get complaints of serious adverse health effects, there is no reason to require them to "prove" they are "safe." They just need to be safer than what they are replacing and there is absolutely no logical reason to conclude that isn't the case. Were dairy companies required to test fat-free ice cream to prove it was safe? No, because fat free ice cream is regular ice cream without the bad stuff. Why should e-cigarettes, which are basically cigarettes without most of the bad stuff, be required to prove they are safe? Making ice cream fat-free doesn't make it 100% safe compared to regular ice cream, so the FDA doesn't require it to prove it is safe. It just needs to be as safe or safer than regular ice cream. E-cigarettes should be treated the same way as compared to traditional cigarettes.
Now, that being said, should e-cigarette manufacturers be monitored to make sure that their products are being made in the safest way possible - no cheap shortcuts substituting GRAS ingredients with dangerous ingredients such as diethylene glycol, clean and sanitary manufacturing practices, full disclosure of the ingredients so consumers can make an informed purchase, warnings on the label not to swallow liquid and keep away from children and pets and offering child-resistant packaging? No sales to minors? ABSOLUTELY! Those are reasonable expectations. But unless e-cigarette use is shown to be harmful by reports of serious adverse effects by users or there are reports that manufacturers are purposely adding known harmful ingredients without public knowledge, there is no reason to require them to go through expensive (and relatively pointless) clinical trials to try to "prove" they are safe for everyone.
(My personal opinion.)
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