Health watchdog suing e-cigarette manufacturers
The US non-profit health watchdog, Center for Environmental Health (CEH), said yesterday that the majority of the 97 electronic cigarettes and other vaping products tested had produced high levels of the cancer-causing chemicals formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, in violation of California safety standards.
The independent laboratory testing of products from two dozen electronic cigarette manufacturers were said to have found that 90 percent of the companies had at least one product that produced levels of one or both chemicals that were above the state’s safety limit.
One electronic cigarette had been found to produce a level of formaldehyde more than 470 times higher than the California safety standard.
The CEH report, ‘A Smoking Gun: Cancer Causing Chemicals in E-cigarettes,’ is said to outline the first-ever large sampling of ‘actual e-cigarettes and vaping products tested simulating real-world use of the products’.
It said that the tests had demonstrated ‘that the majority of e-cigarettes tested pose a serious cancer risk’
CEH said it was initiating legal action against the companies producing ‘the cancer-causing products’ for failing to warn consumers, as was required under California’s consumer protection law known as Proposition 65.
This follows CEH’s legal action earlier this year against e-cigarette makers for failing to warn consumers about the ‘risks from nicotine in e-cigarettes’.
“For decades, the tobacco industry mounted a campaign of lies about cigarettes, and now these same companies claim that their e-cigarettes are harmless,” said Michael Green, executive director of CEH.
“Anyone who thinks that vaping is harmless needs to know that our testing unequivocally shows that it’s not safe to vape.
“This is especially troubling given the reckless marketing practices of the e-cigarette industry, which targets teens and young people, and deceives the public with unfounded health and safety claims.
“Our legal action aims to force the industry to comply with the law and create pressure to end their most abusive practices.”
Full story here.
