Korean Government Attacks E-Cigarettes
The Korean Ministry of Health issued a press release on 2012-01-20 condemning e-cigarettes. It published an outline analysis of 121 samples of e-liquid in which it reports that the majority of samples contained toxic levels of pthalates, acetaldehyde, and formaldehyde - some of which it characterises as 'found in nuclear rooms' or that 'block male hormones, mimicking female hormones'.
According to this representation, e-cigarette users must suffer from nuclear industry diseases and, if male, become neutered. Strangely, none of the millions of e-cig users who consume these materials (presumably in large quantities) have reported this, and neither have their doctors.
In should also be noted that no other laboratory in the world has reported dangerous levels of these contaminants, including the FDA laboratory, which is certain to have tested the same brands. Despite hundreds (if not thousands) of tests of e-cigarettes, significant levels of these chemicals are not previously reported, even by labs run by opponents of e-cigarettes.
Specific details
No details of the testing have been given.
There are no names of brands, or types of liquid, or nicotine strengths. There are no details of the cartridges or cartomisers tested.
There are no details of the laboratory tests performed: no information about the methods of testing, the procedures used, the equipment used, or the chemicals used in testing (some chemicals are always used in laboratory tests such as GC-MS).
There is no specific statement that either the liquid refills or the vapour was tested, or both. By inference, we assume that only the liquid was tested, not what the user would receive in the vapour.
Incompetence and lies
Because these results have never been found before in hundreds of tests, including by the FDA, and because the contaminants are all clearly possible with faulty laboratory procedures, it appears that these highly unusual results are due to incompetence at the laboratory used by the Ministry.
In addition to using an incompetent laboratory, they have then promulgated an outright lie by accusing e-cigarette suppliers of supplying toxic materials, without checking their facts. Any competent laboratory in the world could have corrected their mistakes.
In addition, they have accused e-cigarettes of being carcinogenic because some samples showed trace carcinogens. Virtually all nicotine products, including pharmaceutical NRTs, contain trace carcinogens - and obviously these are safe. They have tried to misrepresent the facts about trace carcinogens.
The Ministry must know that nicotine skin patches are safe, and are known not to cause cancer, otherwise they would not license them for use in Korea. The carcinogens found in e-cigarette refills are at the same level as, or lower than, those in pharmaceutical skin patches. A professor of medicine is on record as having stated that, "These trace levels are millions of times lower than are significant to health". Because the Ministry of Health must employ some health professionals, who would be aware of this fact, the Ministry is therefore stating an outright lie by inferring that the levels of carcinogens found in e-cigarettes are injurious to health.
In addition, they are guilty of outright lies by stating that, "The amount of nicotine in an e-cigarette is equivalent to 723 tobacco cigarettes", and, "Cigarettes contain 0.05mg of nicotine". They presumably employ some technical experts, so they must know the amount of nicotine they state a cigarette contains is a lie. According to the US government figures [1], a cigarette contains between 13mg and 23mg of nicotine. Therefore if as they state, an ecigarette cartridge contains 36mg of nicotine, it could then contain less than two cigarette's worth of nicotine [2].
They did not test the vapour from an e-cigarette, so they cannot use the measurement of nicotine in cigarette smoke as a comparison. If the e-cigarette cartridge is tested, then the tobacco in a cigarette must be used; but if the vapour had been tested then they could have compared it to cigarette smoke. They didn't. There are very large differences between the amount of nicotine in a cigarette, and what the smoker receives in the smoke: approximately one-twentieth. By trying to obbfuscate this, and by not comparing like-with-like, the Ministry is effectively lying.
Faulty procedures
Here we describe why the testing laboratory is incompetent, and why the Misnistry should have checked their facts at a competent laboratory before publishing lies.
1. A very large proportion of the materials tested were found to be contaminated: from two-thirds of the samples, to all the samples, depending on the contaminant - from 82 to 121, ex 121.
2. No other laboratory in the world has found significant levels of these chemicals, and this includes several government labs such as the FDA (US) and the MHRA (UK).
3. The contaminants of the pthalate type mentioned in the report are plasticisers that can leach from non food grade plastic containers when exposed to solvents, and are not found in e-cigarette refill liquid because manufacturers are aware of this issue and use food-grade containers and bottles without plasticisers.
4. The contaminants of the acetaldehyde and formaldehyde type are reaction compounds formed as a result of solvent reaction with another substance, such as occurs in laboratory tests, and are not found in e-cigarette refill liquid.
5. Most of the brands tested have almost certainly been tested by other laboratories, without the same contaminated results.
Therefore, it must be assumed that the laboratory is incompetent and has contaminated the samples, by the following mistakes and bad practice:
1. They did not use cobalt glassware as is normally used by labs, but instead used plastic containers.
2. They used cheap plastic containers, not even of food grade.
3. They store their solvents and other materials in plastic bottles and/or use plastic containers to hold samples during testing after adding solvents. It is common practice to add ethanol to samples for GC-MS testing, and this will leach pthalates out of low-quality laboratory plastic containers, and may create ethanal (acetaldehyde), as found. The use of methanol as the solvent may create methanal (formaldehyde), as found.
4. Despite the fact that pthalates have never been found before, including in some of the brands they almost certainly tested such as Dekang and Hangsen (the most widespread brands), they did not have the results checked but immediately published the results.
5. Some of the tests or materials used may have resulted in reaction compounds being created such as acetaldehyde (ethanal) and formaldehyde (methanal). Instead of noting that these have never been found before at significant levels, and looking for the reason, the results were published without checking. These reaction compounds have been created by interaction with lab chemicals used for testing samples such as ethanol and methanol.
6. They did not report the tests for these chemicals in the accepted form of ppm or ppb (parts per million or parts per billion), so that the results cannot be compared with the internationally-recognised levels considered significant to human health. A preliminary calculation shows that even the amounts claimed to have been found are below the recognised levels for toxicity.
7. Publishing levels below the recognised levels for toxicity, and claiming the liquids are toxic, amounts to an outright lie.
8. They did not supply details of the methods and materials used to a third party for checking the results before publication. The tests were not checked for errors, even though the results are different from those obtained in every other laboratory in the world.
9. The results were not peer reviewed before publication, but were published immediately and without checks by independent colleagues.
Conclusion
The laboratory used by the Korea Ministry of Health has demonstrated gross incompetence.
The Korea Ministry of Health has also demonstrated incompetence by publishing test results that are completely different from any others ever published. Instead of asking why this could be possible, and checking the lab tests with a third party, they neglected to carry out any checks.
The Ministry has also attempted to conceal the fact that an e-cigarette user does not inhale the contents of the liquid, but instead inhales a vapour created from the liquid, and the contents are entirely different. This constitutes a lie by omission.
The Ministry did not test the vapour. Even the most junior researcher knows that the ingredients of cigarette smoke are different from those in tobacco; and a smoker does not consume the contents of the cigarette, they consume the smoke created (otherwise they would receive the 23mg of nicotine possible in a cigarette and would be hospitalised). Either the Health Ministry staff do not know enough about these matters to test materials properly, or they are trying to conceal information, or they are lying.
The responsibility of the Korea Health Ministry
They have employed an incompetent laboratory and/or lied about the implications of the results.
They have lied about the amount of nicotine in cigarettes.
They have lied by implication about the effects of carcinogens in e-cigarettes.
They have tried to ensure the maximum publicity is given to a report that consists largely of errors, lies and omissions.
By refusing to give the names of the brands or products they tested, they are deliberately concealing their falsifications. The press release is essentially a blatant lie.
Update February 2012
We have now been informed by Korean chemists, who have examined the 'lab report' provided to us, that the report is nothing of the kind. It appears to be an amateur production consisting of faulty procedures, terminology, and methodology, leading to speculation that it was produced by a junior ministry employee with no chemistry qualifications.
The number of mistakes and omissions led them to believe the document was produced by a person or persons unqualified to do so, for example in a school lab as a project at 16 year-old level. They were adamant that this level of competence does not reflect the levels in science and chemistry in particular in Korea.
-----------------
Notes
[1] http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cessation
[2] There is about 1.1mg of nicotine in the smoke from one cigarette. However if the contents of an e-cigarette are being reported (not the contents of the vapour), then the contents of a cigarette must be used as a reference (not the contents of the smoke). Clearly, the same terms of reference must be used.
[3] http://www.osha.gov/dts/chemicalsampling/data/CH_216300.html
http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=STANDARDS&p_id=10075