Third-hand vapor .. causes cancer?

[JLeigh]

I'm not going to lose any sleep over "studies" like these. Anyone with an agenda (no matter what the agenda) can always produce a "study" that falls into line with their thinking. Data can be manipulated, studies can be slanted, and any study or conclusion that defies the current popular agenda can be buried.

Here's a good article by Michael Crighton. Scroll down to the middle, starting with this paragraph:

What, then, can we say were the lessons of Nuclear Winter? I believe the lesson was that with a catchy name, a strong policy position and an aggressive media campaign, nobody will dare to criticize the science, and in short order, a terminally weak thesis will be established as fact. After that, any criticism becomes beside the point. The war is already over without a shot being fired. That was the lesson, and we had a textbook application soon afterward, with second hand smoke.

 

[CES]

I'm nowhere near an attachment limit (since i"m just barely allowed to post attachments), so here's the pdf of the article, for what it's worth. I've skimmed it, but the chemistry is beyond me.

 

[Safira]

Let us not forget lotions, those evil preservatives that inhibit mold and fungus from growing in our lotions. Bring on the preservative free. moldy lotion, it's a much quicker death. (just like cigarettes)

 

[Vocalek]

Note to self: Do not exhale vapor all day long onto a square meter of cellulite substrate, leave the material beside the gas water heater pilot overnight, and lick the surface clean in the morning. This is a potentially dangerous practice. It may result in consuming as much nitrosamines as are absorbed from a few cigarettes. The most prominent of these nitrosamines may or may not be carcinogenic.

Hmm... I'll have to post that note to self, too. Can never be too careful!

 

[wv2win]

I agree. This is the first concern about public e-smoking being a health hazard -- based on a study, not speculation. You can expect shots to be fired at e-smoking in weeks and months to come based on this.

On the other hand, what about all the studies that global warming is destroying the earth? How many of those studies have turned out to be bogus with falsified data. Weren't there studies that purported that caffeine and cell phone batteries MAY cause cancer. It's a wonder any of us are still alive on this planet.

 

[raqball]

I think there are studies that say milk is dangerous, air is dangerous and cell phone use is dangerous... As stated before any study can be bent to make it look like something is dangerous or the best thing since sliced bread...

I read all studies with one eyebrow higher than the other because the author generally has an ulterior motive...

 

[TropicalBob]

I can understand skepticism about studies, but do not make the mistake of comparing this to global warming, or hot dogs, or milk, or bleach, or any other substance. This is about nicotine residue clinging to surfaces, where dermal contact might trigger cancerous changes.

You think that's not serious? Think again. Focus on this one issue, without wild comparisons that will never be made by any regulatory agency. Ask only: What will the FDA make of this study, now that it has full control over tobacco and drug products?

 

[JLeigh]

I can understand skepticism about studies, but do not make the mistake of comparing this to global warming, or hot dogs, or milk, or bleach, or any other substance. This is about nicotine residue clinging to surfaces, where dermal contact might trigger cancerous changes.

You think that's not serious? Think again. Focus on this one issue, without wild comparisons that will never be made by any regulatory agency. Ask only: What will the FDA make of this study, now that it has full control over tobacco and drug products?

I'm not dismissing what the regulatory agencies will make of this. They'll jump on it like a starving man who finds a piece of bread. It's the study itself that I'm dismissing, and I'm dismissing it because it can't be trusted.

 

[Katmar]

I'm not dismissing what the regulatory agencies will make of this. They'll jump on it like a starving man who finds a piece of bread. It's the study itself that I'm dismissing, and I'm dismissing it because it can't be trusted.

Exactly....my thoughts to a tee.
Thanks, JLeigh !

 

[Vocalek]

On the other hand, what about all the studies that global warming is destroying the earth? How many of those studies have turned out to be bogus with falsified data. Weren't there studies that purported that caffeine and cell phone batteries MAY cause cancer. It's a wonder any of us are still alive on this planet.

Speaking of which, on Monday, the Department of Commerce was scheduled to hold a press conference to announce the establishment of the N.O.A.A. Climate Service as a "portal for climate science and services." Commerce was forced to hold the press conference via telephone because the Federal Government was closed due to the blizzard.

ooops.

 

[MVP]

I think using vent-free appliances itself would be questionable.


As of January 1999, Montana and Massachusetts prohibited residential use of vent-free gas heating appliances in the states. California was writing regulations and was projected for sales and installations of natural gas vent-free products in the year 2000. Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Minnesota and Alaska allow vent-free installation in some areas and Wisconsin allows it in homes built before 1990 (US Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association website http://www.gamanet.org/consumer/ventfree/codes.htm ). These restrictions appear to be less stringent than in 1993, when Benedek and Goodman (1994) listed eight states prohibiting unvented space heaters, and several other local prohibitions. Most states continue to allow unflued space heaters (J. Joyce, personal communication).

 

[DC2]

I think using vent-free appliances itself would be questionable.

Good to see someone else taking this seriously.
Because, yeah, this is serious.

 

[Kilroy]

I'm not a chemist, so maybe I'm stupid or something, but I can't understand how they saturated the surface with tobacco smoke and then blame their findings on nicotine. The products of combustion, the TNSAs they're already there. The acids may exacerbate that but how does the nicotine trans-mutate into something other than what it was?

 

[snowpig]

Except that their theory has all kinds of holes in it when it comes to the electronic cigarette. They determine that the nicotine in cigarette smoke reacts w/ nitrous acid, so therefore the nicotine in vapor must do the same thing. Such an extrapolation of data is weak, mostly due to the myriad of chemicals in cigarette smoke not found in vapor. One or more of these chemicals could serve as an potentiator or a catalyst to the nicotine-nitrous acid reaction. Without that unknown chemical the described reaction can't take place.

Also the statement concerning ecigs has a lot of waffle words, such as "potentially" and "may cause". That weakens the statement even further.

Exactly right. As a professional engineer I would be in a lot of trouble if I tried to project test results like that. Seems they are pretty desperate to create some kind of link to e-cigs without having any experimental support.

Irresponsible and amateurish.

Here is the kind of extrapolation that report reminds me of, seems we are heading right back into those dark ages:


[youtube]<object width="580" height="360"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/zrzMhU_4m-g&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/zrzMhU_4m-g&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="360"></embed></object>[/youtube]


Steve

 

[Kurt]

Snowpig, that one of my favorite scenes. The whole movie is fantastic.

I'm going to try to attach the original PNAS article. Thanks to Smokey Joe for his help on this.

View attachment 7023

This is the actual pdf, not a link to PNAS, which I doubt the majority of people have subscriptions to. I'm doing this because we have some chemists here that can take a look at it, and for everyone to see what a typical chemistry paper entails. It is rather technical. I do not have any comments about it yet, just wanted to see if I could attach it in its original form.

Evidently there is a general problem with attaching pdfs on ECF, and SJ is trying to resolve this. I have access to many journals and can get original articles. Perhaps this will keep us from being as dependent on media spins about studies. I'm going to see about getting the Dr. E article too and posting it. That will take some time, as this one required several people working together to make it possible, but hopefully this will be resolved. Many thanks to Sun and SJ for helping me out with this!

 

[Kurt]

Well, that didn't work. Ok, looks like more work is required.

 

[bestthingever]

Note to self: Do not exhale vapor all day long onto a square meter of cellulite substrate, leave the material beside the gas water heater pilot overnight, and lick the surface clean in the morning. This is a potentially dangerous practice. It may result in consuming as much nitrosamines as are absorbed from a few cigarettes. The most prominent of these nitrosamines may or may not be carcinogenic.

Too funny, Mister !

 

[TaketheRedPill]

As for vaping, wasn't there a study that said we do not exhale significant quantities of nicotine, that it almost all gets orally absorbed?

----And with smoking, without the ash-smoke particles, which nic attaches itself to, would there be any surface nic to be found? Its the tars that build up all over the surfaces, holding nic in place. They sort of force the issue by blasting a surface with nic, not smoke, but we don't know about nic on surfaces from a VG/PG vapor. I cannot help but think there would be essentially none from vaping, even if we were to exhale a lot, which we don't. And there is no VG buildup from vaping in my office.

QUOTE]

Yes, there is a study that says we don't exhale noticeable nic, but that was a paid-for study. Our own Exo and Dvap were experimenting on this very question, and I believe the end result was, on a 'primer-puff' we exhale somewhere from 30-50% of the nicotine - not so much on a complete inhale/exhale.

re: nicotine attaching - we are assuming that the nicotine binds to pg or vg which is why oral absorption is so high (50% in a primer puff situation), and so would be exhaled bound to them also. From ancedotal evidence from here on the forum, there is a slight film buildup on, say, computer screens, windshields, etc., from vaping so one could assume, that film would have at least some residual nicotine, which would, I guess, depend on nicotine level being used to begin with, and factoring in 'primer puffs', exposure to the decomposing effects of sunlight on nicotine,
etc. (one would assume nicotine byproducts would also decompose under UV).

What is most worrisome about this paper, is it implicates a smoker's home/car/boat/rv/gardenshed as condemnable - i.e., unsaleable. This is very not good. Not good at all!

As far as Berkeley, well, it's not unknown to have research bent towards political leanings (read: global warming), however, if these results can be collaborated by researchers at UC Davis, then you can unfortunately take it to the bank. Let's hope UCD finds differently (and one can expect them to jump on Berkeley research if for nothing else than professional rivalry and one-upmanship).

For now, very not good..


TTRP

 

[cpcp68]

For the sake of fairness, I would like to point out that the researchers in this paper are not from UC Berkeley. They are from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a completely different institution. LBNL is only managed by UC but their employees are contractors to the US Department of Energy. This is not to say no employee has ties with UCB, some are actually faculty there, but the mission and operations of the lab are completely different than those of UCB. I do not think the considerations reserved for UCB and California completely apply. Also if you look at the full affiliation list:

1. aIndoor Environment Department, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, MS 70-108B, Berkeley, CA 94720;
2. bDepartment of Chemistry, Portland State University, Portland, OR 97201;
3. cDepartments of Medicine and Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, CA 94143; and
4. dSchool of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287

you will see other institutions, not all UC.

Having said that, I do not know who funded the research and why, but from reading the title and the abstract, it seems to be written mostly to catch some attention so the authors can become more popular via also ordinary press and rides the wave of the 'third hand smoke' phenomenon, a recent new mind .........ion technique.

Edit: after googling third hand smoke, I would not be surprised if the authors will claim they coined the term.

 

[PlanetScribbles]

It never fails to amaze me how the nutty nannies worry so much about the negligible by-product from an e-cig, but fail to be worried by the toxic **** they breath in every day when they leave the safety of their front door. Third-hand soot that clings to every bloody surface you can see.
It beggars belief that we live in a world inhabited by such petty minded hypocrites.