# Wildly Misleading Study Spun As Proof E-cigs Possess 10 Times the Carcinogens of Tobacco



## Alex (27/11/14)

*Wildly Misleading Study Spun As Proof E-cigs Possess 10 Times the Carcinogens of Tobacco*
by Klaus Kneale No Comments
November 27, 2014





A study from Japan was published this week that media are already calling _ the latest blow to an invention once heralded as less harmful than smoking_. According to the researchers, electronic cigarettes tested for carcinogens proved to have 10 times the formaldehyde normally found in tobacco cigarettes. This has been spun as _E-cigarettes contain up to 10 times the amount of cancer-causing agents as regular tobacco_.

In reality, managing to get 10 times the carcinogens of tobacco cigarettes into anything remotely similar in scope would be a feat of chemical engineering. Despite decades of study, scientists are still working to identify all the crap found in tobacco smoke. Best estimates put the number of constituents somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000. Thus far, more than 4000 identified constituents have been deemed extremely harmful to one’s health.

For a moment, let’s assume that the researchers did find 10 times the formaldehyde in equivalent amounts of e-cig vapor as tobacco smoke (even though it only occurred in one brand). There’s still a few problems with the way this is getting spun — the first of which being that formaldehyde is not nearly the worst or only constituent in cigarette smoke which users should be worried about.




Even if there is a surplus of formaldehyde in e-cig vapor compared to tobacco smoke, there’s much higher amounts of Acetylene, Ammonia, Cyanide, Benzene, and much, much more to be worried about. Countless other studies have found levels for all these constituents (including formaldehyde) in most e-cig vapor occur at levels 10, 100, or 1000 times below that of cigarette smoke. Many constituents known to occur in tobacco smoke haven’t even been found in electronic cigarette vapor.

Still, it seems the researchers found only a single e-cig brand that (inconsistently) produced a high level of formaldehyde. At this point, there are so many brands and companies that a single (probably cut-rate piece of crap) hardly represents the chemical architecture of the industry at large. “In one brand of e-cigarette the team found more than 10 times the level of carcinogens contained in one regular cigarette,” said researcher Naoki Kunugita, adding that the amount of formaldehyde detected varied through the course of analysis. Sounds to me like they chose to cherry pick only the information that made the point they were looking for.

Again, even assuming e-cig vapor contains 100 times the formaldehyde of tobacco smoke, their use would still be far, far less harmful than smoking.

Of course, this news will likely travel the media circuit pretty fast. However, there is much more evidence that e-cig vapor isn’t nearly the danger some misleading studies would have us believe.

source

Reactions: Like 7 | Winner 2


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## Alex (27/11/14)

PS. I found this


from here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4154203/table/t1/

Reactions: Like 2 | Winner 2 | Thanks 1


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## Silver (27/11/14)

Thanks @Alex - great find.

Love the way this article was written.

Key sentence for me was:
"...the researchers found only a single e-cig brand that (inconsistently) produced a high level of formaldehyde."

By the way, I posted the reply I got from Dr Farsalinos on that other thread.
He didn't rip the research apart like this article you posted but in essence he was saying we shouldn't worry

Reactions: Agree 2 | Thanks 2


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## Frostbite (27/11/14)

http://kemptonexpress.co.za/afp/?afp-story-id=32778


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## Frostbite (27/11/14)

In our local paper too... Whoo hoo the word vape made the dictionary !


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## Renaldo (28/11/14)

and now on News 24 SIGH : http://www.news24.com/Green/News/Another-blow-for-E-cigarettes-20141127


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## WHITELABEL (28/11/14)

Renaldo said:


> and now on News 24 SIGH : http://www.news24.com/Green/News/Another-blow-for-E-cigarettes-20141127


yeah just left my  in the comments.


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## Metal Liz (28/11/14)

i just copied this article over into the comment aswell! Love how News24 jumps onto the band wagon with everything negative about ecigs EVERY single time!!!! I haven't seen them publish one positive thing about ecigs yet (i stand to be corrected)...

Reactions: Like 3 | Agree 1


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## Metal Liz (28/11/14)

waiting for it to be loaded on... seems like they won't allow me... it says my comment has been submitted, but it's not showing


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## Alex (28/11/14)

Metal Liz said:


> waiting for it to be loaded on... seems like they won't allow me... it says my comment has been submitted, but it's not showing


I see that. They probably don't allow anything that makes themselves look like complete idiots.

Reactions: Agree 2


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## free3dom (28/11/14)

Alex said:


> I see that. They probably don't allow anything that makes themselves look like complete idiots.



Haha, then they should remove 90% of their articles

Reactions: Like 1 | Agree 2


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## korn1 (30/11/14)

http://www.ecigarette-research.com/web/index.php/2013-04-07-09-50-07/2014/188-frm-jp


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## Renaldo (30/11/14)

Look at the picture on mybroadband...

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/content...t-of-cancer-causing-agents-as-regular-tobacco

Do people even know the difference between Hookah's and E-cig's?


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## BigGuy (30/11/14)

I reckon i should send news 24 a copy of my MRI scan from 5 months ago where the specialist said besides age deterioration in my lungs he could not pick up that i was ever a smoker, and when i quit i was on 7 cigars a day when i quit. And lets see if they publish that, in matter of fact i think we should all spam their email address with similar findings and positive articles and let them sift through all that. FRIGGEN SENSATIONALISM idiots.

Reactions: Like 3 | Agree 1


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## korn1 (30/11/14)

BigGuy said:


> I reckon i should send news 24 a copy of my MRI scan from 5 months ago where the specialist said besides age deterioration in my lungs he could not pick up that i was ever a smoker, and when i quit i was on 7 cigars a day when i quit. And lets see if they publish that, in matter of fact i think we should all spam their email address with similar findings and positive articles and let them sift through all that. FRIGGEN SENSATIONALISM idiots.


Oh wow nice. I feel much better than I did on cigs


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## free3dom (30/11/14)

Renaldo said:


> Look at the picture on mybroadband...
> 
> http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/content...t-of-cancer-causing-agents-as-regular-tobacco
> 
> Do people even know the difference between Hookah's and E-cig's?



Haha, classic...journalists are clueless it seems 

I do like the comments section on articles like these...the vapers are defending and informing - we are a passionate bunch

Reactions: Like 2


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