Illegal vaping oils can contain highly toxic gas — surgeons warn
RESEARCHERS have warned about the potential dangers of chemicals in vaping products.
Vitamin E acetate is normally harmless when used in vitamin supplements or skin creams but an Irish research team found it can produce the highly toxic gas ketene when heated through vaping.
It has been found in illegally made vaping oils in the US but it has not been detected in vaping products in Ireland, said Professor of Chemistry Donal O’Shea at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). But new additives in vaping oils generally could result in unforeseen chemical reactions when heated, he said.
Each vaping device was different as the temperature ranges can be quite large. “The different types of vaping solutions going into the devices, such as flavours and additives, might be common enough in our food products that have been tested for ingestion but not necessarily for heating and inhaling into your lungs,” said Prof O’Shea.
“It is this unknown that concerns us.”
Prof O’Shea led a team of researchers at the RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences which discovered that the toxic ketene gas is produced by heating Vitamin E acetate.
Last August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta reported an increasing number of lung injuries following the use of some vaping products, and Vitamin E acetate was identified as a possible cause.
Some lung biopsies showed signs of chemical burns that Vitamin E acetate would not be expected to cause.
The new research findings showed that heat converted the acetate into ketene gas. When inhaled, this can seriously damage lungs. Ketene gas is lethal at high concentrations and at lower concentrations can irritate the eyes and lungs and impair the central nervous system.
Adding Vitamin E acetate to vaping oils by illegal makers was a cheap way of diluting cannabis oil in vaping product. Prof O’Shea told the Sunday Independent it may be several years before the health effects of other vaping additives are understood.
“When you heat things they can be changed into something else that has not been fully investigated. That is the reason for our note of caution,” he said.
The research team used a vaping device to simulate a person vaping Vitamin E acetate. As well as detecting ketene, they found it produced cancer-causing agents found in tobacco smoke.
Meanwhile, doctors at RSCI and the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital have published a new study on the outcomes of electronic cigarette use in pregnancy.
The study found the birth weight of infants born to e-cigarette users was similar to that of non-smokers and significantly greater than babies born to cigarette smokers.
Researchers acknowledged that while stopping smoking and avoiding nicotine was preferable, some women turned to vaping as a method of harm reduction.
Although the study found e-cigarettes had minimal impact on birth weight, “the long-term fetal effects of high dose nicotine such as that received through vaping is unclear”.