3D Printing Proves Scientists Really Have No Clue

Once again researchers are scraping the bottom of the barrel in an effort to “prove” that vaping is bad for you. Most readers will remember the worst vaping article of 2016 in The Sun – though there was an altogether bizarre story drawn from an anecdotal story on Reddit which may pip that by a nose. This time around, vaping is apparently no better – or specifically, found to be just as bad as (wait for it) – unfiltered tobacco cigarettes.

Yep. Couldn’t make it up.

As it happens, I’ve managed to get my sneaky, grubby mitts on said paper and…well, judge for yourself.

This study, and I’ll use that term loosely, is using a 3D printed system to “develop a more sophisticated and sensitive general automated array to assess genotoxic potential of environmental samples”. In other words, to see which chemicals being looked at will interact with genetic material. Remember the last cell study? It’s doing the self-same thing, only this time instead of incredibly expensive machinery, they’ve designed and printed a “cheap” version. For some unknown reason, these researchers decided that they’ll look at both e-cigarette aerosol, cigarette smoke and contaminated water. Two completely different ends of the scale. Water, and smoking/vaping.

Wait. An “artificial inhalation device”. That’s either going to be a smoking machine, like all the other studies, or it’ll be..

A syringe. A bloody syringe. Of all the most ridiculous, non-real-world-like methods to choose! A syringe will draw a relatively consistent amount, but in no way can it reflect the inhalation action of the human lung, mostly because when us mere mortals breathe in – either normally, or during a puff – we often taper the inhale so that the final second or so draws substantially less than we do at the beginning.

Strike one for methodology already.

I wonder where they get this idea from?

Really? Let’s have a quick look at the cited paper for that figure. “Daily use (120 puffs and five refills per day, that is, 24 puffs per refill) was in the range of the number of puffs inhaled by daily cigarette smokers” – which according to Etter et al, equates to roughly 15 cigarettes per day:

So, not at all representative then. If that is representative, then it would be approximately 11-12 puffs “per cigarette” for a 15-a-day smoker.

Sigh, yet some more random figures. Oh, but the first paper this statement cites is none other than our friendly engineer-come-scientist, Professor Stanton A. Glantz, so I think we can pretty much throw that equivalence in the bin can’t we? Considering this statement:

Well of course you’re going to need “higher vauums” you utter dullard. This is where science spectacularly fails to account for real-world usage. When the level of liquid gets below a certain point, it fails to wick correctly leading to – you guessed it – a dry fucking hit. Naturally, in that paper the “smoking protocol” is daft:

Depending on the type of device an individual chooses to use, that regimen is either going to provide zero satisfaction or give you a dry hit. However, it is rather telling that nowhere in this illustrious paper does it mention what vapour product the researchers used. That in itself is rather telling don’t ya think? Who wants to bet on an ego with a CE4?

Of course, the second of the two citations isn’t much better as it looks at how vapour products are advertised – or were, back in 2014 at least.

Strike two for piss-poor methodology.

So what did they actually find after “20 puffs of e-cigarettes was taken as equivalent to smoke from one tobacco cigarette”?

Just what you’d expect to find when you dry out the wick of course. Large quantities of chemical increases (well, duh you fucktards, you fried the coil), with even greater levels for 60 & 100 puffs. Which is where the comment “worse than unfiltered cigarettes” comes from.

What a complete waste of $100 to design that 3D printed shite.

Update

Thanks to Fergus Mason for bringing this to my attention.

Interestingly, as Fergus kindly pointed out to me, the clear acrylic spray has one or two, uh, problems.

For instance, page one of the safety data sheet lists the following hazards:

• Flammable aerosols – Category 1
• Gasses under pressure – Compressed gas
• Skin corrosion/irritation – Category 2
• Serious eye damage / eye irritation – Category 2A
• Carcinogenicity – Category 2
• Specific target organ toxicity (Single Exposure)(Respiratory tract irritation) – Category 3
• Specific target organ toxicity (Single Exposure)(Narcotic effects) – Category 3
• Specific target organ toxicity (Repeated exposure) – Category 2
• Aspiration hazard – Category 1
• Percentage of the mixture consisting of ingredient(s) of unknown acute toxicity: 20.4%

Furthermore, the composition details are quite extraordinary:

• Acetone – 32.81%
• n-Butyle Acetate – 21.39%
• Propane – 20.4%
• Butane – 9.6%
• Ethyl 3-Ethoxypropionate – 4%
• Xylene – 2.38%
• Ethylbenzene – 0.42%

There’s more.

Toxicological information:

• Butane (LC50 Inhalation vapor) 658000 mg/m3 (in rats admittedly)
• Xylene (LC50 Inhalation gas) 5000 ppm (again in rats)

The data sheet is quite an eye opener really. This is the stuff that the researchers coated the 3D printed reservoir in. Don’t ya think it might have had an impact on the levels of detected chemicals?

It’s certainly one to ponder.