I’m not assuming anything just making a hypothesis. Lead is one thing but wouldn’t really meet what we’re seeing here (caustic injury, seemingly random/inconsistent incidence). Maybe there’s some problem, for instance, in the battery leading to some kind of internal corrosion and release of acidic fumes. It wouldn’t occur in every battery, but only in some small subset that have a manufacturing defect. To determine anything about this would require forensics on the vapes themselves and I haven’t seen anything on that thus far.
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Ahh that makes sense.
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Yup. I’ve done experiments using emergency mining gas detection equipment for HCN and very dirty distillate. Even when dropping 2-3 grams on an 800F nail in an enclosed space(about 1 cubic foot) we would only see peaks of 1-15ppm, I believe your average cigarette is like 75ppm HCN
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“The cells were found in samples after performing a procedure called bronchoalveolar lavage where fluid is squirted into a small section of the lungs and then collected for examination.”
Doesn’t sound like an assumption to me.
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@Ruwan Hmm. Makes sense. Also HCN wouldn’t really explain the cases in which e juice was being vaped…
There have been people getting sick from THC carts, box mods, and even juul pods, right??? Not just one kind of vape…
The only thing that is consistent among all of those vapes is hardware from China…
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For anybody interested in checking if their disty is hot at home, this worked well for me.
I simply built a plexi-glass enclosure around the detector and inside I rigged a little stand for a cheap titanium nail. Ran a metal coat hanger through a small hole in the roof as a dabber and placed fat dabs on the pre heated nail. Sure there’s a less antiquated way to achieve the same end but it worked well for my purposes.
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That’s what I mean by non-invasive. They didn’t look at lung tissue. I think in that quote they are referring to the cells they found, which are lipid-laden macrophages. Those cells can be the result of endrogenous lipoid pneumonia, or things like vaping PG/VG (at least in mice).
Correlation does not imply causation.
And now we’re back to the Chinese chemical weapon theory. Now that they’re not allowed to pump this country full of fentanyl as easily, they have moved to intentionally poisoning stoners across America. They’re retaliating to the cia sowing dissent in Hong Kong. Get your aluminum foil on your heads fellas, we’re going down a deep rabbit hole 
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I don’t mean to say vitamin e is the cause by any means. I’m just saying that these cells have been demonstrated to be present in people that have associated symptoms. So I’m thinking ruling OUT vitamin e isn’t a good idea yet either.
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The thing that makes me feel dirty about this is how fast and broad they came down on a huge industry after a few sickeness and deaths, when alcohol and cigarettes have been wiping people out forever. Banning all vape products in a state is a pretty broad move. While I’m sure people are getting sick, the political part of all this is pretty alarming
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Cigarettes kill half a million people a year in the US alone.
Vapes killed 6 people and got banned lmao. I wonder if lobby dollars from cigarette companies have anything to do with the double standard here. 
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That’s a fair point. But I would say this very strongly points to it not being vit E acetate, or terpenes (which are oils AFAIK).
The fact they found no oil is huge. And the fact Mayo feels stronly enough to suggest it’s not vit E oil (or terpenes by inferenace) is very important to add to the discussion.
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I think the body count is 12-13 now, but also the total number of people who became severely ill and ended up in the ICU has likely surpassed 1000. Cigarettes are terrible for society, but don’t discount that fact that this has costed $10’s of millions in medical expenses, not to mention permanent lung damage for hundreds, maybe thousands of individuals.
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I am not trying to make it out to be no big deal…
6 had died when the ban came along… Even if all 1000 died, still barely a fraction of what cigarettes do. My point is that our government isn’t trying to “protect us.” This ban is not for Public Health and Safety. If these young vape companies had the capital that Marlboro does, no way we would be seeing a ban right now.
Banning the things so everyone buys on the black market is not the smart solution at all.
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And to play off your $10s of millions that it has cost in medical expenses… How many $$ in medical expenses do cigarettes/alcohol cause per year? That’s not an issue?
caustic… do you guys think triethyl citrate could be responsible?
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Not sure. But people have been using Tec Temper from Abstracts for years I think. That’s mostly TEC I think.
TEC is in e-cig juice in many cases, just in small amount.
I completely agree with you. All the major tobacco players have the FDA’s testicles in a tight clamp made of sweet-sweet cash.
This whole ordeal is to induce legislation so the fda/big tobacco/healthcare industrial complex can be the ones holding the reigns on the vape game.
Vaping is going nowhere. It will slow down for a few months and then have a new face and regulatory framework with self-interests in mind. Back to business as usual.
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Couldn’t agree more my man. 