3/ Flavouants
Usually food/pharmaceutical grade organic or chemical flavourants which have already been tested and passed as safe for human consumption....
There are no pharmaceutical grade flavourings, at least none that I'm aware of. Organic and Pharma grade in the same sentence is 'tricky' Pharma grade means extremely pure, usually as the result of extensive processing, whereas organic means 'grown as nature intended, without chemical fertilisers/pesticides.'
Out of all the ingredients used in e-liquids this is where the health problems, if any, will come from. None of the flavours used have been tested for inhalation use for any long term period. We just don't know what longer term health problems inhaling lots of these flavours might do. We do know already that some compounds, like diacetyl, are perfectly safe when eaten, but cause lung disease when inhaled lots over a longer time period (popcorn lung) Any compound that proves to be harmful, like diacetyl, is quickly removed from use.
While flavours and aromas have been used for a long time in aromatherapy, and you undoubtedly inhale some flavours when you eat, or while you prepare food the volume of flavourings taken into the lungs is much higher when vaping than from other methods.
There *does* need to be more research. We are presently very confident that in the short to medium term there is no health issue at all from vaping. None. We don't know about the longer term (10-20 years) and we can't know for at least another decade, vapings just not been around that long.
Worst case scenario and some health issues do come to light in the longer term then it's 99.99% certain that you could vape unflavoured e-liquids without any health issues as the results of inhaling PG/VG and nicotine over the longer term are better known.
All that said the regulators ought to be taking the view that until such time as a major health problem does come to light, then these products can be sold on the open market as they are now. If we have to wait another decade to get all the science done then a LOT of people are going to die from preventable smoking related diseases while they all argue the toss about 'making sure it's safe'
We know for sure it's a about a hundred times safer than smoking tobacco, that should really be the only consideration if the products on the market are marketed to smokers/ex smokers.
