But, Vaping was studied for so long before coming to the market. The chemicals used are well documented and regulated thoroughly.
From the CDC:
- As of 5:00 p.m., August 22, 193 potential cases of severe lung illness associated with e-cigarette product use had been reported by 22 states (CA, CT, IL, IN, IA, MN, MI, NC, NJ, NM, NY, PA, TX, UT, WI, and additional states pending verification). These were reported between June 28th and August 20th of this year.
It’s not a study; these are the states which are reporting incidences of these illnesses.
I would assume so, or it wouldn’t be a story.
Again, per CDC:
- CDC and states have not identified a cause, but all reported cases have e-cigarette product use or “vaping.”
- Available evidence does not suggest that an infectious disease is the principal cause of the illness.
- Investigators have not identified any specific product or compound that is linked to all cases.
- In many cases, patients reported a gradual start of symptoms including breathing difficulty, shortness of breath, and/or chest pain before hospitalization. Some cases reported mild to moderate gastrointestinal illness including vomiting and diarrhea and fatigue as well.
- In many cases, patients have acknowledged recent use of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-containing products while speaking to healthcare personnel or in follow-up interviews by health department staff; however, no specific product has been identified in all cases, nor has any product been conclusively linked to illnesses.
- Even though cases appear similar, it is not clear if these cases have a common cause or if they are different diseases with similar presentations. The State Departments of Health are investigating the possible cause of the illness by testing patient specimens and e-cigarette products. State-specific epidemiologic investigations are ongoing.
User name checks out.
Well, sure, 200 illnesses over two months is nowhere near the 480,000 smoking-related deaths that tobacco causes per year.
I don’t get what you mean by this. It may not be enough data to draw a meaningful conclusion from, but it’s definitely “data.”
The other story I saw about this was about the first death linked to vaping.
The release also says the number of people who have experienced respiratory illness after vaping doubled to 22 in the past week.
Whether doubling in a week, or increasing 60% in 5 days, it strikes me as most likely to be some contaminant or bad batch, rather than something fundamental about vaping, which people have been doing for years now. I’m curious to see what they find from it. So far there seems to be nothing to indicate that vaping is much more dangerous than eating salad (which sometimes gets recalled for causing outbreaks of e. coli or such).
Yet sitting near someone vaping still gives me headaches, same as sitting near someone smoking a cigarette does (interestingly, cigars and pipes never seem to bother me).
Vape still has formaldehyde and other crap in it. People get too focused on nicotine.
“People have been vaping for years” is no indicator of safety. If that were true, coal dust, asbestos, and lead would all be safe.
No offense, but that’d trigger my nicotine allergy and nsaid/salicylate sensitivity.
Gadgetgirl, do you have similar allergies?
It’s the propylene glycol that changes to formaldehyde when heated. Yes there’s debate over whether it’s enough to be harmful, but it’s not correct to claim it isn’t there:
Scientific American should be ashamed of themselves for adding the word “Dangerous” in that headline. It’s really misleading.
Aspartame has been demonized (by the conspiracy-minded) for creating formaldehyde when ingested. The levels have been shown to be so low, however, that it isn’t a problem; formaldehyde is a created from the metabolism of many foods, in higher concentrations in some cases. Here’s a Snopes article about it.
So I wonder about the quoted study. The rate of formaldehyde formation at the highest voltage may still be below a toxic level.
It’s great that @Cynical gave up smoking (which we know is dangerous) for something probably less so, and for making the fluid at home. At least you know what’s in it! Is there a way to do it with water and flavoring only? Or doesn’t that give the same experience?
The reason I ask is though glycerine is safe as anything to ingest, but elsewhere in the body I wonder.
Thanks for the shoutout. New topic - voila!
dimly remembered high school physics says power is proportional to voltage squared
Haven’t tried, but from what I’ve read:
a) water would make the coil rust, which would be unhealthy to inhale
b) it would make the vapor scalding steam which would burn your insides when you inhaled it
c) it wouldn’t carry the flavoring like the oils do but instead dilute it
with
V = potential in volts
I = current in amps
R = resistance in ohms
P = power in watts
V = IR
or
I = V/R
P = VI
so
P = V²/R
So does 35 watts = 0.35v * 0.35v / 0.5ohms ?
0.35²/0.5 = 0.1225/0.5 = 0.245 watts (not 35)
So something’s wrong; possibly me.
ETA: It seems to me that the order of magnitude of 0.245 watts makes more sense to me. Does a vaping device really use almost as much wattage as a 40 watt bulb?
Yeah, breathing steam might not be a good idea. But isn’t that happening anyway? (Obviously I know nothing about vaping, so I guess I shouldn’t talk about things I know nothing about!)
P=IR stuff I sort of remember from college, though.
I’ll just put this here for reference. Lots of inconclusive evidence that might merit more study.
It is free-- you don’t need to spend 90 bucks on the ebook.
Chemical reaction rates generally increase with temperature, in a complex way. So it makes sense you’d get more formaldehyde as you up the T.
“Rapid application of heat” is a little vague to me, though I guess the result is the same. I mean rapid application over the short term is sort of the same as slow application over the long term.
One thing that’s not in the equation (or might be hidden as part of one of the constants) is the time needed for the reaction to happen. That’s chemical kinetics, which I’m not at all familiar with. As is I’m reaching back quite a few years to remember all this stuff (with the help of Wikipedia of course).
I imagine these same thing happens when you cook food. Look at all the fuss about grilling meat and carcinogens in the char that forms.
I think that’s a good analogy. There are some complicating factors (how fast heat can actually flow). Over a thousand seconds, the oil will probably go up by 1 degree, because the heat has time to flow. In one second, not much heat will have a chance to flow, so the temperature of the oil won’t go up nearly as high (overall). Right near the interface between the oil and source of heat, it will get really hot, but far away it won’t. So you’ll get different things happening in different regions of the oil.
These things get complex really fast, despite the “simplicity” (ha) of the equations. That’s why they use computers to solve problems like designing a computer case so the heat from the processors and whatnot are taken away properly.
That’s the kind of experiment that need to be done!