There has been a lot of noise surrounding a recent study that purports to show e-cigarettes, under the right conditions, can release as much formaldehyde as a conventional cigarette.



Making matters worse was that the study was covered in the New York Times. Naturally, some details were missing although a few details were included and promptly ignored by other outlets and the public.

Specifically, the article mentioned that formaldehyde went from minute levels to very high after the test vaporizers passed 4.0 volts. That seems to have been truncated to e-cigarettes have the same carcinogens as regular ones. Even co-workers picked up on that one, where I had to go into some dissertation about what’s in each.

Ignoring people’s proclivity to look for scary things, the notion that higher voltages spikes the levels of bad stuff is still worthy of eyebrow raising. Why does increasing the voltage cause those numbers to shoot up?

Dr. Farsalinos has some ideas that he posted online. Basically, they likely ran too much voltage to a top-coil tank like a Vivi Nova. This would have caused the dreaded dry hit. Of course the study didn’t reveal the resistance of the tank to confirm what sort of wattage we’re looking at, so it’s impossible to say for sure if this is the case.

It seems quite likely to me. I don’t think anyone thought anything good came from dry hits. After all get a good lung full of crusty wick and you’re coughing like Walt Disney.

That leads me to my question, and the reason I wanted to do this poll. Is this something you think we should be worried about? I have my own opinions, but for once I’m going to shut up and let everyone else speak up.

So, please participate in the poll below, and/or leave a comment.

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