Analysing Air Quality….at a Vape Convention

Thanks to a fellow advocate, a new study has been brought to my attention and it is all about the myth that is secondhand smoke or in this case secondhand vapour. It is yet another blatant attempt to persuade policy makers that vaping in enclosed spaces is a bad thing, which we all know is bantha poo-doo.

From the abstract:

It’s pretty clear that the authors of this study haven’t been keeping up with the various Bills being proposed across the US or the insane babbling of the Welsh Health Minister as policies to “deter” vapour product use indoors are becoming increasingly prevalent.

So what on earth did these authors hope to accomplish?

Methods

So, measuring air quality at a vape convention along with a restaurant, places where “air quality” is bound to be affected by any number of factors. Digging a little deeper into the method I came across this snippet (emphasis mine):

So this research team attended a vape event and installed concealed air monitors. Here’s the thing, I’ve been to a couple of vape events indoors, and yes they do get cloudy but the only real “side effect” is I had a bit of a dry mouth which as we all know is easily remedied by drinking. I suppose the other effect is that with so many folks in a single area it gets a little warm, but that’s hardly anything to do with air quality.

However, particulate matter is a concern and has been shown to be pretty destructive to the lungs, at extreme exposures but not at the levels “identified in second-hand smoke”.

There is already a flaw in the author’s method:

So they used a device that can’t detect the mythical “nano particles” that certain researchers blather on about so the authors state that the measurements are “underestimated” – i.e. “we found x, but it could really mean y”.

Now, I don’t know about you but if I saw someone trying to measure something like air quality at a vape convention I would probably, and quite deliberately blow as large a cloud as I could do, so it is entirely possible that others at the event did exactly the same thing.

Wait a minute, sampling outdoor air as a control? What about all the environmental particulates?

The research team took their measurements and averaged 60 consecutive 1 second readings while disregarding the first and last reading of each session to exclude any potential measurements from outdoor air when entering or exiting the venue.

Interestingly, the researchers applied the same calibration factor used for evaluating secondhand smoke and, get this, the couldn’t reliably determine e-cig use during the event days so they classified everyone as an ecig user.

As you would expect, particulate matter was indeed substantially higher on the event days, however the researchers completely failed to identify the composition of these particles. Indeed Clive Bates has thoroughly dissected this on not one, but two occasions.

So what indeed is all the kerfuffle about?

It’s all in the “discussion” segment of the paper.

Do the study authors even consider what the particulate matter consists of? Nope. They also fail to realise just how substantially different e-cig aerosol is compared to tobacco smoke.

Likely differs? Well really. The aerosol emitted is entirely different. As Clive points out:

Quite.

Undeterred, the researchers continue:

Yes that’s right, throw in some scary sounding words about “chemicals” and “harms” and you’ve got junk policy gold. There is currently zero basis to expect any “harms” from e-cig aerosol, but that doesn’t deter these researchers from harping on about it.

Correct me if I miss the point here, but if a non-vaper attended a vape event they have voluntarily agreed to be in the presence of vapers and the “dangerous” aerosol, so what is the issue? True, it does have much broader implications, we all know how zealous some anti-smokers (and anti-vapers) are, but the fact is the researchers haven’t added anything meaningful to the debate, all they have done is say “we attended a vape event and found vapour”.

Ah, here’s the crux of their ideals:

All about protecting those who “involuntarily” inhale e-cig vapour so naturally the final part of this study is all about telling policy makers that they “may want to consider to what extent e-cig users are required to comply with all existing clean indoor air regulations“.

This isn’t about science, or even about health. This study is all about telling policy makers “we found some stuff so ban it”.

If they’d bothered to identify what the aerosol consisted of and found anything that might prove harmful I might be more lenient, instead they just counted particles, added some scary sounding words and “recommended” that e-cigs are to be included in clean air policy.

Policy based science. Nothing more ludicrous on this planet.