There has been a lot debate surrounding the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes, about whether they are worth the switch or whether they are just as damaging as regular cigarettes being a simple marketing scam.
The FDA recently shunned electronic cigarettes based on the detection of various carcinogens in the form of tobacco-specific nitrosamines in several of the nicotine cartridges, when these e-cigarettes are marketed as tobacco free products.
Subsequently, the FDA held a press conference in which it tried its best to frighten the makers and users of electronic cigarettes into abandoning the use of electronic cigarettes. The implication that went unsaid was to revert back to smoking traditional cigarettes. As a result, organizations that exist to protest sensationalized health scares jumped onto this carcinogenic scare, calling for a ban on e-cigarettes.
However, the Food and Drugs Administration and the ever-ready protest groups failed to prove three essential points that would have been crucial in their argument.
The first thing that they neglected to mention were the levels of the nitrosamines that they said were tobacco specific which they discovered in the cartridges of the electronic cigarettes. The second major flaw in their argument was their failure in testing the control product, which was a nicotine inhaler to establish a specific carcinogenic level in the electronic cigarettes.
Thirdly, they ignored the fact that tobacco-specific nitrosamine levels also exist in traditional tobacco products such as cigarettes in their report, which made an overall flimsy case for the ban, as there is no point in pushing for a ban for electronic cigarettes without asking the administration to ban regular cigarettes as well.
Further research conducted on the matter showed that electronic cigarettes are safer in scores in comparison to conventional cigarettes. Research administered by Dr. Murray Laugesen and Health New Zealand ltd. shows that the levels of toxic emissions from e-cigarettes are much less than that of regular cigarettes.
The integral part of the research was the degree of toxic emissions which were determined from the e-cigarettes. Toxic emissions were based on the levels of fifty nine priority toxicants out which absolutely ZERO were found for electronic cigarettes.
The same test conducted in regular cigarettes showed a hundred and twenty six different priority toxicants were detected in an average Marlboro and hundred different toxicants were discovered in generic brand cigarettes that were tested alongside the name-brands.
The study mentioned tested electronic cigarette vapor, instead of the content of the cartridges. This is the most relevant way to test the level of carcinogens/toxicants because the user inhales the vapor emitting from the electronic cigarettes rather than sucking on the contents of the cartridges.