Hazardous chemicals discovered in vapor.

• Position: Flavored E-Cigs - Brief article

Building on more than 30 years of air quality research in some of the most polluted urban environments, a team of atmospheric scientists at the Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nev., has turned its attention toward the growing e-cigarette industry and the unidentified effects of vaping on human health.

Research published in Environmental Science & Technology, a journal of the American Chemical Society, reports that the aerosols (commonly called vapors) produced by flavored e-cigarette liquids contain dangerous levels of hazardous chemicals known to cause cancer in humans.

Toxic aldehydes, such as formaldehyde, are formed not by evaporation, but rather during the chemical breakdown of the flavored e-liquid created by the rapid heating process (pyrolysis) that occurs inside e-cigarettes or electronic nicotine delivery systems.

"How these flavoring compounds in e-cigarette liquids affect the chemical composition and toxicity of the vapor that e-cigarettes produce is practically unknown," contends Andrey Khlystov, associate research professor of atmospheric sciences...