Duncan Hunter blows hard on vaping rules

To show he just wasn’t blowing smoke, according to The Hill  on June 27, Hunter, who infamously puffed from a nicotine vaporizer during a committee meeting last year, pulled out two different devices to illustrate what he argued were flaws in an amendment that Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) offered to an aviation bill.

“Let me show you the problem I have with Ms. Norton’s amendment,” Hunter said.Duncan whipped out a small electronic cigarette that contained nicotine and took a puff from it. Then he pulled out a larger red vaporizer that contained no nicotine.

“This is not covered … under Ms. Norton’s amendment,” said Hunter, who puffed on the second device in the exact same manner to prove his point. “That doesn’t make sense to me. Either say that an e-cigarette is illegal, whether it has nicotine or not in it.”

According to The Grapevine Duncan Hunter Investigations, a study of some online material posted by Hunter as “uberjaeger” on various chat rooms included on the e-cigarette forum dot com, “The world’s largest e-cigarette website,”

Hunter aka uberjaeger posted:

“I’m a Congressman from California and I vape in DC all the time around all the other congressmen. There are a few others besides me. A few have pipes, one has the smoke anywhere e-cig. I pass out the puresmoker business cards I get w/ thier (sic) products. I’ve even gotten a few staffers and security guys to buy them.”

Using an e-cig is called “vaping, most contain the chemical nicotine, which is addictive. When you stop using it, you can go into withdrawal and feel depressed and crabby. Nicotine isn’t good for people with heart problems. And some initial research shows it may hurt your arteries.

It can also:

• Harm the developing brains of kids and could affect memory and attention.
• Damage unborn babies. Pregnant women shouldn’t use anything with nicotine.

But the concerns go beyond nicotine alone.

Some brands contain chemicals including formaldehyde — often used in building materials — and another ingredient used in antifreeze that can cause cancer.

Flavors in e-cigs also raise red flags. Some use a buttery-tasting chemical called diacetyl, which is often added to foods like popcorn. When it’s inhaled, it can be dangerous.

“Diacetyl is a well-known harmful chemical, which, among other things, causes a lung disease called ‘popcorn lung,'” says Erika Sward, assistant vice president for national advocacy at the American Lung Association.

Or consider, the PBS Nova Next investigation of vaping’s results.

More Than Just “Harmless” Vapor

The more scientists learn about e-cigarettes and their impact on human health, the more complicated the picture becomes. For one, no one knows exactly how toxic these products are because the use varies from person to person. And, contrary to what marketing materials may say, e-cigarettes produce a lot more than just “harmless” water vapor.

E-cigarette juice contains a mix of propylene glycol, glycerin, nicotine, and flavoring agents approved by the FDA as “Generally Recognized As Safe” (GRAS) for consumption. When this mix is heated, a group of compounds known as carbonyls are produced. This includes compounds such formaldehyde and acrolein. While cigarettes generally produce a thousand times more carbonyls because of the combustion process, e-cigarettes produce a varying amount depending on the ratio of glycol to glycerin in the vaping fluid and how much of it is heated, says Daniel Conklin, an environmental cardiologist at the University of Louisville.

Conklin has investigated how e-cigarettes might affect cardiovascular disease using a type of mouse bred with a disorder that mimics heart disease seen in humans. Acrolein is of particular concern because it is considered to be the main contributor to the increased risk of cardiovascular disease among cigarette smokers, he says.

For 12 weeks, the animals were exposed to traditional cigarette smoke and an e-cigarette aerosol at two concentrations of nicotine, ten and 36 milligrams per milliliter, which spans the range of nicotine usually found electronic cigarette juices. The mice were also exposed to acrolein by itself at 0.5 and 1 parts per million (levels typically found in cigarette smoke). Lastly, a group of mice were exposed to just nicotine in water.

One puff of an e-cigarette is likely less toxic than a traditional cigarette, but we don’t know how many puffs the typical e-cigarette user is taking.

Unsurprisingly, standard cigarette smoke had greatest effect, increasing atherosclerosis risk about three times over the baseline. Oral nicotine doubled atherosclerosis risk, while acrolein “seemed to have a dose dependent increase” with risk doubling at higher levels. E-cigarettes seemed to also have a dose dependent result. At the higher concentration, 36 milligrams per milliliter of nicotine, the e-cigarette aerosol doubled the risk of atherosclerosis. Even nicotine alone appeared to induce atherosclerosis acceleration in mice, Conklin noted.

Although he stresses the limitations of one experiment performed on mice, they are cause for concern. He also stresses that how these products are used changes rapidly. For example, some e-cigarettes can be tweaked to deliver more vapor. “There is some concern that we don’t really know how much aldehyde like acrolein is being generated by these modifiable electronic cigarettes.”

How e-cigarettes are used also adds to the confusion. While there is decades worth of data on how a traditional cigarette is smoked, there is little consistency in how e-cigarettes deliver nicotine and flavor compounds. One study found that these products might deliver different levels of nicotine during each use and there were significant differences between “labeled and true levels” of nicotine in juices. One puff of an e-cigarette is likely less toxic than a traditional cigarette, but it’s not known how many puffs the typical e-cigarette user is taking.

“We don’t really know what that frequency does to the health outcome,” Conklin says.