Worried About Formaldehyde in Vaping?

A defective e-cigarette experiment in 2015 by R. Paul Jensen and colleagues caused quite a stir globally. Their study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine claiming that the vapor produced “hidden” formaldehyde at far higher levels than cigarettes. The measurements they used were performed by overheating and “dry-hitting” e-cig liquid, not a pleasant experience as most vapers are familiar with.

As Churchill said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” This unrealistic study by Jensen has caused great harm to the general public by leading people to believe that vaping is more dangerous than smoking. The vaping community is very well aware that both Big Pharma and Big Tobacco have been spreading lies about vaping due to the millions of people and billions of dollars they are losing to the vaping industry.

Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos and colleagues put Jensen’s experiment to the test and proved what a great fallacy the formaldehyde issue is involving the safety of vaping. Farsalinos noted in Food and Chemical Toxicology that “The high levels of formaldehyde emissions that were reported in [the Jensen] study were caused by unrealistic use conditions that create the unpleasant taste of dry puffs to e-cigarette users and are thus avoided.”

Farsalinos’ group reproduced Jensen’s earlier experiment using the same, now-outdated, vaping equipment that was prone to dry hits. They consulted experienced vapers to help identify what settings caused the burning effect of a dry hit: 4.2 volts at 8.0 watts. They also used Jensen’s methods to measure formaldehyde production at various voltage-power settings. This chart shows their findings:

Dry hits were experienced by vapers when the formaldehyde was 100 micrograms per 10 puffs. A microgram is one-millionth of a gram, proving that Jensen’s formaldehyde level wasn’t hidden at all. Actually, at 380 micrograms it was found to be much higher than vapers could tolerate. To expose the myth at lower, normal vaping power, formaldehyde was only 20 micrograms. That’s two-thirds that of cigarettes.

Farsalinos educated the scientific community: “blindly testing e-cigarettes in the laboratory setting without evaluating realistic use is a serious omission that can result in misleading conclusions about the risk to consumers compared to smoking, and such conclusions can wrongly imply that there is little to be gained by switching to e-cigarettes.”

Clive Bates and Konstantinos Farsalinos published a letter in response to the 2015 Jensen article in Addiction calling for the study’s findings to be retracted. Their demand, however, was ignored. The current publication on Farsalinos’ findings is a much-needed antidote to Jensen’s seriously flawed and misleading findings.