Popular US e-cigarette products contaminated with bacterial and fungal toxins

A study published by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health on the online journal Environmental Health Perspectives shows that dozens of popular e-cigarette products are contaminated with bacterial and fungal toxins that cause lung disease.

The use of e-cigarettes has been steadily climbing in recent years, especially among high school and middle school students.

The impurities found in the e-cigarettes, which are associated with asthma and chronic obstructive lung disease, were found in nearly a quarter of single-use e-cigarette cartridges and in over three quarters of e-liquids.

The researchers examined 75 popular e-cigarette products from 10 top selling U.S. brands and screened for the presence of endotoxin and glucan, toxic inflammatory substances that damage the lungs.

The study found that endotoxin concentrations were higher in fruit-flavoured products, indicating that raw materials used in the production of flavours might be a source of the contamination.

The researchers noted that they did not know where the impurities came from and that the contamination of the products could have occurred at any point during or after the production of the ingredients.

They hypothesized that cotton wicks used in e-cigarette cartridges could be one potential source of contamination, as both endotoxin and glucan are known contaminants of cotton fibres.

 

Via NBC News/ Environmental Health Perspectives/The Boston Globe/