There is little reality in the efforts of big tobacco and big pharma to portray the use of propylene glycol as a danger ingredient in electronic cigarettes. In 1942, studies at the University of Chicago’s Billings Hospital seemed to show inhalation of vaporized propylene glycol might cause pneumonia and other respiratory diseases in mice. Later studies to follow up were conducted on monkeys and other animals in an attempt to understand long term effects. The results of the extended testing showed no ill effects or potential for accumulation of propylene glycol in the lungs.
The FDA and tobacco companies were quick to cry “danger’ and point to an ingredient that has been judged safe to use for many years. There is primary truth that is totally ignored in the warnings. We know smoking almost anything is safer than smoking tobacco.
In e-cigarettes propylene glycol is used to dilute the nicotine and provide a solution that can be vaporized and deliver nicotine to the e-smoker. PG is a commonly used food additive and is the substance used in fog machines. It also appears on the label of ingredients of many of the food products we routinely buy.
Warnings about propylene glycol are not coming from the scientific community, doctors, researchers, scientific journals or nutritionists. Searching online you’ll notice the warnings about PG appear on the blogs of anti-smoking groups, sites of conspiracy theorists and natural healing sites. On several blogs the dire warning of “you are breathing antifreeze” may point out those who flunked organic chemistry. The ethylene glycol in antifreeze is not the same thing.
A tremendous amount of information can be found on the internet but it’s important to know who you are listening to. PG is used in baby wipes and even the FDA is unlikely to approve a dangerous product for use on infants. The best electronic cigarettes deliver only a very small amount of PG to the e-smoker. Some e-liquids use glycerol rather than PG as a base but propylene glycol is the most used ingredient in e-liquid solutions.
Consumers are more conscious of food additives and harmful ingredients in the foods they eat than every before. Looking at the ingredients on products you buy is a smart thing to do. We know to look carefully at labels when buying products low in sugar. Ingredients such as sucrose and fructose and various types of “syrup” may be listed and each of those ingredients is sugar.
The saccharin scare thirty years ago is a valuable example of the folly of acting on incomplete information and drawing incorrect conclusions. The FDA banned saccharine which was a very popular sweetener used as an additive in many packaged foods and. The FDA stated saccharin had caused cancer in mice and panic ensued. Companies lost a lot of money in changing the ingredients in their products and the public tossed out boxes of Sweet and Low which was a popular saccharin product.
The mice who contracted cancer from saccharin were given a daily dosage that when converted to human quantities would require a person to drink the equivalent of 400 cans of diet soda each day for months. Saccharin is freely available in stores today.
PG is necessary as an ingredient in e-cigarettes to deliver the vapor smokers want. There is no scientific proof that e-cigarettes containing propylene glycol pose a danger to the smoker. That is the truth no matter how much effort big tobacco puts into discrediting a competing product.
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