Behind the Vapor: Chasing the facts about e-cigarette health risks
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. Read the full story.