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Thirty countries across the world have outlawed all vaping products, largely due to health and environmental concerns.
Legislation to ban disposable vapes and limit available flavours and colours was approved by the Irish Government in September of last year.
But what exactly is the issue?
Professor Luke O’Neill told the Show Me The Science podcast that “there’s good bits and bad bits” to vaping products.
“One of the big bad bits, which was spotted I think five or six years ago now in 2019 [by] the famous CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) in America… They had tracked a brand-new disease,” he said.
“It was called e-valley, e-cigarette vaping product use associated lung injury.
“This was a very peculiar type of lung injury that was happening in people who use vapes, and they identified that as a problem way back in 2019.
“Then in 2020, the CDC identified nearly 3,000 admissions in hospitals in America for people being harmed.
“Their lungs were being damaged by vaping without any doubt about it.”
A teen vaping on the street. Image: Steven Gill / Alamy
Prof O’Neill said that the main ingredient in vapes that was causing this condition – vitamin E acetate – has since been removed by most manufacturers, leading to a sharp drop in cases.
“Others have said there’s other chemicals though, and it’s a bit unregulated,” he said.
“Johns Hopkins have said there’s other things in here, not just this vitamin E acetate for instance.
“So, it’s still a bit of a debate whether that solves the problem or probably doesn’t.”
Cancer
According to Prof O’Neill, other chemicals have been found in vapes, including one called tributyl phosphine oxide that is used in pesticides, as well as heavy metals.
He said that there is currently no concrete link between vaping and cancer, but that may just be because there haven’t been many studies examining the effects of long-term vape use yet.
“In lab mice, they do cause cancer – so again, damaging DNA,” Prof O’Neill said.
“Some of these chemicals that are in the vapes will cause a thing called oxidative stress.
“What that means is that you’re making these, what I call actually ‘free radicals’ – that’s a chemical term that comes off oxygen.
“These oxidative stress chemicals, they damage the DNA, they cause mutations, and those mutations in the DNA can then promote cancer.”
However, Prof O’Neill said there are some positives to vaping, as it has been proven to help people quit smoking.
Main image: Luke O’Neill in the Newstalk studio (L) and a shelf of vapes (R).
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