Why have some studies reported enormous amounts of formaldehyde and metals in vaping emissions? In this episode of Science Series with Roberto Sussman, we break down how those scary numbers can come from bad experimental conditions—especially overheating setups that don’t reflect how people actually vape. Roberto explains why “micrograms per puff” can be misleading, how to translate emissions into realistic daily exposure (based on typical puff counts), and how those totals should be compared against toxicological standards published by regulators.
You’ll also hear why properly designed tests tend to find toxic byproducts far below cigarette smoke—and often below common benchmarks, with a reality-check comparison to everyday aerosols and even air pollution exposure.
Transcription:
00:04 - 00:20
[Host]
Welcome to another episode of Science Series with Roberto Sussman. Today we're tackling a question that has generated headlines, controversy and significant scientific debate. Why have some studies reported enormous amounts of formaldehyde and metals in vaping emissions?
00:21 - 08:46
[Roberto Sussman]
Okay, you detected a certain amount. Let's say you quantify the amount in terms of, there are several ways of of expressing the results. But the typical, the more intuitive one, is a given amount of micrograms of the substance, it can be a metal or it can be an aldehyde or whatever, a certain amount of micrograms per puff, right? This is not a very accurate measure because humans have a very wide range of puffings. But, okay, let's take this one. So, what do you do with that? What you have to do is to compute the amount of micrograms of the substance that will be inhaled by the person on a daily basis, for example. Or, if it is occupational, then it's eight hours of a work shift. But let's take it for 24 hours. So if you take a certain amount of micrograms per puff, and the average puffing per day is, let's say, 300. It's a bit high. We have taken like between 200 and 300 times average, because you will have some vapors that will vape only 20 times a day. and you will have some vapors that will do 600 or 700. But the average is around 250. So every 250 puffs at a certain amount of micrograms per puff, you get the amount of micrograms, or sometimes it is nanograms. Nanograms is 1,000 million parts of a gram. We're talking very small quantities, right? So you see how many micrograms of, let's say, nickel, or the person has inhaled per day, And you compare this with toxicological standards. There are toxicological standards that are published by the European Union, by the Environmental Protection Agency of the US, by the CDCs. There are many toxicological indices, and normally they are published by every government, right? And so you compare it. You say the amount of nickel that you can inhaled per day according to the European Medical Agency is very strict because it applies to the whole population. It is like, say, two micrograms of nickel per day, right? So you compare it with this index. Now, if you overheat the device, you are going to go well above this index and you are going to say, Vapors, be careful, you are putting lots of nickel in your body. But this is because it is taken from an experiment that tested the devices under conditions that no human would use them. The conditions that produce overheating and activate the reactions that change the chemistry of the aerosol. So the conclusion is wrong. I mean, the conclusion comes from a very bad experiment. All the experiments that are done correctly, they will be well below the two micrograms, well below, maybe 100 of that. 1% of that or maybe 5% of that. So once you do the experiments correctly, you can really show that all toxic byproducts that you produce in the electronic cigarette are not only well below tobacco smoke. That's obvious. They are well below tobacco smoke. but they're also way below toxicological standards. And they are also compared favorably with other household aerosols, like kitchen aerosols or sprays or odorizers or candles or pollution or air pollution. Because if you compare vaping with air pollution, you have to consider that air pollution cannot be switched off. I mean, I can wait or not wait. And when I wait, it's intermittent. The amount of time that the aerosol is in my body is a few seconds, 300 times for a few seconds. So it is the total amount of time that the aerosol is in my body is maybe half an hour every day, right? And pollution You cannot unplug pollution, pollution is there all the time. Even indoor pollution, right? Because a lot of outdoor pollution goes inside. Unless your house is completely isolated, there will be exchange between outside air and if you have ventilation, what does ventilation do? They filter the air, they recycle it, but the filtering is not 100% effective. Even indoors in your own house, you have pollution, right? And this pollution might be much lower. The levels of the contaminants might be much lower than what you inhale in the vape, but they're all the time, all the time. So if you add them, they can be comparable to what you get from vaping, or even more than what you get from vaping, right? So what I'm trying to say is that once you, all these experiments that detect the chemical composition of the aerosol have to be well done and have to, you have to program the machines to be proxy, the best approximation to human inhalation, right? The average, the average human inhalation. And you have to consider the physical principles that say that if you use a very powerful device, you also need a very large air flow, right? And that the devices have to be tested, have to be used within limits. The manufacturers tell you, if you buy this device, there is a recommended power. You have to use it, say, between 10 and 20 watts or 10 and 30 watts. Some high-powered devices can be used between 60 and 100 watts. And the manufacturers know these devices because they have made experiments that are very similar to the ones we have made in our papers, right? And the human user doesn't know physics, doesn't have to know physics, but the taste and the smell and the feel will guide the user. And as long as the user is getting a pleasurable aerosol, an enjoyable aerosol, then you can see that these conditions in the experiment show that the amount of toxic byproducts is minimal. So essentially that's it, that's the point.