E-cigarettes, or electronic cigarettes that vaporize liquid nicotine, are marketed as a healthier alternative to the real thing because they don't contain tobacco. But a new report from France's National Consumer Institute has echoed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's previous concerns about so-called "vaping."
Using a new testing technique, Monday's report says that researchers found a "significant amount" of "carcinogenic molecules" in the vapor produced by 12 different models of e-cigarettes.
In three cases out of 10, for products with or without nicotine, the content of formaldehyde was as much as the levels found in some conventional cigarettes.
“This is not a reason to ban them, but to place them under better control,” National Consumer Institute editor Thomas Laurenceau said.
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Concerns about the health effects of e-cigarettes have prompted a California town to consider a moratorium on new shops hoping to sell them.
"The city [of Seal Beach, Calif.] wants more time to explore the health effects and any time you have a smoke related business you want to take careful consideration and figure out how it impacts the community," Seal Beach Community Development Director, Jim Basham, told My Fox LA.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has reportedly been working on legislation that would place restrictions on e-cigarettes.
Critics of these bans say that e-cigarettes are still safer than real ones. Anti-vaping advocates are against any kind of smoking behavior, even if its not quite as bad for you.
"Many anti-smoking groups oppose these products because they are blinded by ideology," Michael Siegel, of Boston University’s School of Public Health, recently told the New York Times. "They find it difficult, if not impossible, to endorse a behavior that looks like smoking, even though it is literally saving people’s lives....What’s not to like?”
