FDA Cares More About Your Health or the Lobbyists?

I’m sure all you veteran vaporists know what’s going on with FDA and how they evaluated 19 different e-cig companies in which they found two companies to have known carcinogens. First, we have to take a step back and think about the multi-billion dollar industry with tobacco companies on one side, and Big Pharma (with their nicotine replacement products) on the other. The FDA profits on both ends and so we might even see a false paradigm to where the issue is not really about our health but rather about the almighty dollar. Now, we have a product that costs significantly less (depending on where you buy it) and smokers are flocking to this as THE ticket to salvation from the horrible cancer sticks that have enslaved them for so many years. The FDA is not getting any of that and so stop the press ladies and gentlemen…. THESE E-CIGS ARE NOW BAD …. Cough cough uhmm….until further notice. Until what??? Until these e-cig companies give you money to endorse their product??? Come on FDA, this is so transparent it’s not even funny. And if they do become ordained by the Holy FDA; oh yes ladies and gents, expect our prices to go up.

Although there may be some companies who put other glycols and or chemicals (which may be harmful) in their product; apropos, I know the company I go through just has water, nicotine, and an organic compound called propylene glycol. Don’t believe me, please ask them yourself. PG is known to be commonly used in foods, medicines, and cosmetics. The FDA regards PG as a generally safe product with no adverse reactions. There haven’t been extensive tests on the inhalation of PG; however, I did find one thing out there that was quite interesting. After reading the below article and with the possible stronger H1N1 strain ramping up for flu season (fall / winter), I now actually want to smoke more of this e-cig! No, I will not say where I got it from,,,because again, you all know where I did, and this is not for the purpose to promote or spam, but rather to educate J. Nonetheless; experienced e-smoker or not, hopefully you find this information useful.

The following I found in Time Magazine about a Dr. Oswald Hope Robertson and his three year study on the inhalation of PG. "Air Germicide". TIME. Time, Inc.. 1942-11-16. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,932876,00.html. Retrieved on 2009-05-23.

(I also copied and pasted it in case if you’re like me and too lazy to click on the link)

…A powerful preventive against pneumonia, influenza and other respiratory diseases may be promised by a brilliant series of experiments conducted during the last three years at the University of Chicago's Billings Hospital. Dr. Oswald Hope Robertson last week was making final tests with a new germicidal vapor—propylene glycol—to sterilize air. If the results so far obtained are confirmed, one of the age-old searches of man will finally achieve its goal. The idea of sterilizing the air is not new —London's great fire of 1666, for example, was touched off by the countless fires which townsmen lit to purge the air of plague. Use of chemical sprays to control air contamination was first attempted in 1928 by three doctors who tried a fine mist of sea water containing sodium hypochlorite. This venture gave promising results, but all such research lapsed for another decade. Within the last few years, several research groups (notably the University of Pennsylvania's new Air-Borne Disease Laboratories) again began testing various sprays. Many chemicals were found to kill airborne micro-organisms quickly, even in concentrations as low as one gram of chemical per 500 cu. ft. of air. Trouble was that all these air germicides smelled bad, or were toxic, or irritated the respiratory tract. Dr. Robertson's propylene glycol vapor is odorless, tasteless, nontoxic, non-irritating, cheap, [and] highly bactericidal.

Its discovery was accidental. Dr. Robertson and his colleagues were trying out another possible germicide—a detergent or "soapless soap" (similar to Dreft, Aerosol and other products widely sold for household and industrial use). Water solutions of the detergent were only mildly effective, so the researchers tried solutions of detergents in propylene glycol, which is a sort of thin glycerine. Results were much better. Then the researchers found that the propylene glycol itself was a potent germicide. One part of glycol in 2,000,000 parts of air would—within a few seconds—kill concentrations of air-suspended pneumococci, streptococci and other bacteria numbering millions to the cubic foot.

How did it work? Respiratory disease bacteria float about in tiny droplets of water breathed, sneezed and coughed from human beings. The germicidal glycol also floats in infinitesimally small particles. Calculations showed that if droplet had to hit droplet, it would take two to 200 hours for sterilization of sprayed air to take place. Since sterilization took place in seconds, Dr. Robertson concluded that the glycol droplets must give off gas molecules which dissolve in the water droplets and kill the germs within them.

Dr. Robertson placed groups of mice in a chamber and sprayed its air first with propylene glycol, then with influenza virus. All the mice lived. Then he sprayed the chamber with virus alone. All the mice died. Propylene glycol is harmless to man when swallowed or injected into the veins. It is also harmless to mice who have breathed it for long periods. But medical science is cautious—there was still a remote chance that glycol might accumulate harmfully in the erect human lungs which, unlike those of mice, do not drain themselves. So last June Dr. Robertson began studying the effect of glycol vapor on monkeys imported from the University of Puerto Rico's School of Tropical Medicine. So far, after many months' exposure to the vapor, the monkeys are happy and fatter than ever. Dr. Robertson does not expect mankind to live, like his monkeys, continuously in an atmosphere of glycol vapor; but it should be most valuable in such crowded places as schools and theaters, where most respiratory diseases are picked up…

Hmmmm FDA says PG is generally safe, studies so far suggests benefits,,, ok guys and gals it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this one out. The E-Cig has definitely put a wrinkle in the page of these lobbyists. I really do hope we can continue to vape. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe in a safe product, so before you buy …do your research. I’m glad I did. Happing vaping!!