Behind the Vapor

Chasing the facts about e-cigarette health risks

October 20, 2014
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Less than a decade ago, the e-cigarette was an obscure product marketed as a safe, tobacco-free alternative to conventional cigarettes by a single company in China. Seven years ago, the electronic nicotine delivery device entered the US market. Today, health officials, policy makers, and researchers are all scrambling to keep up with a rapidly expanding, wildly controversial, and largely unregulated $3 billion global industry that has, at last count, 466 brands, 7,764 flavors (bubblegum, cherry crush, bacon, java jolt, menthol), and slick, youth-oriented Big Tobacco marketing designed to create the perception that e-cigarettes are not only safe, but cool.

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Behind the Vapor

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  • Sara Rimer

    Senior Contributing Editor

    Sara Rimer

    Sara Rimer A journalist for more than three decades, Sara Rimer worked at the Miami Herald, Washington Post and, for 26 years, the New York Times, where she was the New England bureau chief, and a national reporter covering education, aging, immigration, and other social justice issues. Her stories on the death penalty’s inequities were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and cited in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. Her journalism honors include Columbia University’s Meyer Berger award for in-depth human interest reporting. She holds a BA degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan. Profile

    She can be reached at srimer@bu.edu.

  • Cydney Scott

    Photojournalist

    cydney scott

    Cydney Scott has been a professional photographer since graduating from the Ohio University VisCom program in 1998. She spent 10 years shooting for newspapers, first in upstate New York, then Palm Beach County, Fla., before moving back to her home city of Boston and joining BU Photography. Profile

  • Devin Hahn

    Senior Video Producer

    Devin Hahn

    Devin Hahn creates video content for BU Today, Bostonia online, and The Brink. He is a producer, a cameraman, an editor, and, under duress, a writer. Profile

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Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

There are 16 comments on Behind the Vapor

  1. Thanks for this enlightening look at e-cigarettes and the debate surrounding their use. Clearly, additional research is needed to determine the exact risks associated with the products. It’s certainly a concern that cells exposed to e-cigarette vapor undergo changes similar to those exposed to traditional cigarette smoke.

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  2. I wonder if e-cigarettes would have the same cache if the name change proposed by the Royal Society for Public Health won out. “Want to share a nicotine stick?” “Erm, no.”

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  3. The bottom line is, we don’t know the impact of e-cigarettes on our health and we don’t know how effective they are in smoking cessation. Here’s what we do know: “more than a quarter million youth who had never smoked a cigarette used e-cigarettes in 2013, three times the number of users since 2011,” according to the CDC. A sobering statistic–one that Big Tobacco and independent manufacturers, I’m sure, are cheering.

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    1. Yes, BUT: “If there’s a smoker who can’t quit but who can use this product instead, that has a health benefit. This is almost certainly better than smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes. If this is a vehicle for quitting or a better alternative to traditional cigarettes, it could have a huge public health benefit. There are 45 million current smokers, adults in the US, who are unable or unwilling to quit.”

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      1. i was one of the folk who had tried every other method available to try to quit smoking…but the moment i picked up a vape pen, i had success!…still a non-smoker…and avid vapist!

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  4. What a thorough, informative article that takes into account a variety of perspectives. I also loved the video, which is as stylish as it is educational.

    In the Q&A with Michael Siegel, he says: “It is essential that the FDA allow companies to tell the truth about the intended use of these products—that they are intended to be used for smoking cessation. That would avoid the need for companies to resort to some sort of glamorized marketing campaign that glorifies smoking behavior.”

    This SOUNDS good, but I wonder how amenable the e-cigs companies would be to marketing their products in this way, when they are investing in sleek e-cig equipment, thousands of flavors, and colorful packaging.

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  5. Good to see that there are plenty of useful idiots out there willing to promote a fabricated controversy to ensure that Nicotine patch and gum companies, Big Tobacco, and the government can maintain their respective revenue streams without disruption from a safe and effective alternative.

    People continue to spout the line that “we don’t know the health risks”, and will gladly look the other way each and every time a study is released that demonstrates that there are no negative side effects associated with any of the ingredients other than nicotine. Some focus on nicotine, despite the fact that 0 Nicotine flavors exist are used heavily.

    Still others are “concerned” about the growing numbers of people using these devices in lieu of cigarettes.

    Thousands, if not millions of lives have been saved by these things. What a tragedy, let’s ban it!

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  6. it is a good thing to have research. but as a woman who smoked for 44 years, and who hasn’t had a cigarette since picking up a vape pen, i have my own anecdotal research. for example, before vaping i often needed to use an emergency inhaler and a nebuliser because of breathing issues. since vaping i haven’t needed to. my stamina is greatly increased, i have no more hacking cough, i am rarely if ever winded these days. in addition my singing voice, which had lost the upper half of its range, has been restored.
    so research away! i and my lovely tiramisu or caramel flavoured vape juice have our answer…no more smoking! that is a good thing!

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  7. A very good piece — informative and with good production values.

    Mostly I wanted to say this is the first time I have heard smokers discussing the “non-nicotine-addiction” reasons that people enjoy smoking. As a lifetime non-smoker, I had no understanding of that at all, so this was quite interesting to me. To simply call it a “habit” doesn’t convey the depth of meaning that some of these students did.

    If ecigarettes help people drop the real thing, so much the better!

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  8. Vaping can also be NICOTINE free.

    Ridiculous not to mention that one can also purchase prefilled vape pens and vape oils that contain ZERO known carcinogens.

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  9. If the way I’m reading this is correct, I’m seeing a major flaw in Dr. Spira’s experimentation. He observed an increased growth rate in cells from smokers who have genomic pre-disposition to developing lung cancer, i.e. cells damaged already by the smoker. What is needed is a comparison of healthy cells, and the effect of the vapor on their growth rate, not already damaged cells.

    While I understand he is trying to measure the health effects of switching from tobacco products to vapor products, there needs to be baseline set first before the comparison holds any value.

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  10. Hi, My name is Jackie and I just wanted to send a response about the “Behind the vapor” research article I just read. I want to share my story. I was a pack-a-day smoker for 12 years. My mother smokes, my sister smokes and my best friends smoke. January 1st 2014 I decided to quit. I planned through December and bought the nicotine patches. I used the patches for a month and a half. They helped me bring my smoking down to 6 cigarettes a day. Then I bought an e-cigarette. I chose a product that can provide me with liquid that has nicotine added while Im there so I can choose the level of nicotine in the liquid I’m buying. I have brought that level down from 18mg to 10mg, and will continue to decrease the level, but I have been cigarette free since March 2014. I effectively quit cigarettes.

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  11. I have smoked for over 25 yrs, on average, about a pack a day. One of my best friends was diagnosed with stage 4 small cell lung cancer in July, 2013 and passed away Sept 12, 2013. She was a heavier smoker, with almost 15 yrs on me being a smoker, but it scared me. I spent the rest of 2013/beginning of 2014 trying to quit on my own. That didn’t work, so I went for anti-smoking counseling, coupled with the patch, for over 6 months. I never got below the 18mg patches and wasn’t able to get below 3-5 cigarettes/day. I gave up because the patches caused rashes with extreme itching and didn’t stick very well during the hot summer months. But, I still worried about my health and wanted to quit. I first heard of ecigs from a heavy long term smoking neighbour, who was trying to quit in 2014, but I wouldn’t buy something like that online. On February 3, 2016, I stopped in at a local flea market that carried ecigs, and has a regular store as well. I bought the tank style unit and a couple of 12mg nicotine bottles of e-liquids. I did continue to smoke a cigarette a day, until I finished the pack I had started before I decided to try vaping. Tomorrow, it will be 6 weeks without a cigarette and I no longer feel like having one. It was harder to not buy a pack, just to have around and in my possession than it was to switch. I never could quit before and stopped believing I ever could. I live in Canada and buy from a Canadian family business. The contents are listed on the bottles, along with the amounts of the 3 ingredients. I think vaping should be moderated by all FDAs, to ensure consumers know exactly what’s in them and what they are ingesting. One thing I’ve read elsewhere, that wasn’t mentioned here, is that vaping causes TB, because of the moisture taken in to the lungs. I’d like to know if this is true or not?

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  12. I smoked Marlboro cigarettes for 45 years, 2+ packs a day for the last 15 of them. After three heart attacks and a quadruple bypass my son brought me a Blu e-cig to the hospital as I was pissing off the doctors by sneaking in cigarettes. The e-cig provided enough relief that I was ok not smoking. After hospital I dual-used for a few months, vaping and smoking alternately. After three months cigarettes tasted so bad by comparison that I could not stand the taste or smell of a cigarette. I discovered sub-ohm vaping devices that completely eradicated the desire to smoke. I vaped 3mg e-juice for two years and for the last six months have vaped 0mg – e-juice with no nicotine at all. I am very happy to be off cigarettes, enjoy vaping and being free of the nasty side-effects of cigarettes, and am convinced that I am healthier. I certainly feel and breathe better, my clothes and house don’t stink…and my government is trying to take that away and assure that smokers have no alternative to cigarettes. I am deeply disappointed in our political leaders for not promoting this much safer alternative to smoking. the argument ‘It may be safer but it is not completely safe’ has to be the dumbest argument for allowing continued destruction by cigarette companies and their lobbyists ever. Stop the insanity, set aside the FDA’s regulations which actually harm us.

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  13. I’ve struggled to find good research concerning vaping but my experience has been very positive. I have a family history of several addictions, with nicotine being the most prevalent. I have dozens of extended family members and not a single one hasn’t had a nicotine addiction at some point in their life as far as I am aware. I never planned on picking up a cigarette in my life until I was 19 and began working as a cook. For those who don’t know the industry, smoking is an almost cultural catharsis from the stress of such a high intensity job. I quickly became a pack or two a day smoker, and tried to quit with gum, patches, or cold turkey six times in two years. I finally decided to switch to vaping and it’s the only thing that helped me quit. I’ve been cigarette free for 8 months now and I’ve reduced my nicotine consumption from 24mg to 9mg since then. I’m not going to say it’s safe, but it’s a valuable tool for quitting smoking.

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