Illegal e-cigarettes seriously harm brain development, experts urge smokers to choose legal products

According to the BBC, recent tests have found that illegal e-cigarettes have serious issues with heavy metals and formaldehyde exceeding safe limits, which not only harm brain development but also induce various blood diseases and cancers. Regulated legal e-cigarettes do not have such problems.

The tests were conducted by the independent scientific laboratory Inter Scientific in the UK, which collected 18 types of unregulated "three-no" products that were sold without approval. The results showed that these products generally exceeded safe limits for heavy metals, with carcinogenic substances like lead, nickel, and chromium being 2.4 times, 6.6 times, and 9.6 times the safety standards, respectively. The formaldehyde released by illegal e-cigarettes exceeded safe limits by 10 times.

John Britton, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Nottingham, explained that toxins like nickel and chromium can easily lead to blood clotting and cardiovascular diseases, while the neurotoxin lead can attack the brain, causing lead poisoning and endangering lives. "I have conducted e-cigarette-related tests for 15 years and have never found lead in legal products; even if harmful substances are found, their levels are too low to cause harm," said David Lawson, co-founder of the laboratory. "These illegal products are terrible; they should disappear from the market."

In fact, many countries have extremely detailed regulations regarding the heavy metal content in e-cigarettes, and as long as they are legal products, there are no exceeding limits. However, due to a lack of understanding of relevant standards, some smokers indiscriminately choose illegal products. According to media reports, many domestic users are still purchasing so-called "milk tea cups" and "overseas fruit-flavored e-cigarettes," which are illegal products that do not meet the national standards for e-cigarettes and have been explicitly banned from sale. The "milk tea cup" has been found to exceed safe limits for heavy metals and additives.

In addition to a lack of understanding, many smokers are also misled by erroneous research conclusions and directly abandon switching to e-cigarettes. "We have analyzed several papers claiming that e-cigarettes exceed heavy metal limits and found that these studies did not consider actual situations. According to their conclusions, a person would have to use over 100ml of e-liquid daily for the heavy metals to exceed safe limits. This is already beyond human usage limits," said Konstantinos Farsalinos, a cardiologist and smoking control expert from the National School of Public Health in Greece.

The UK government is promoting e-cigarettes to smokers. Its official website states that the harms of cigarettes mainly come from the over 4,000 chemicals and 69 carcinogens produced by tobacco combustion, and e-cigarettes do not contain the combustion process of tobacco, which can reduce 95% of the harm from cigarettes. Konstantinos Farsalinos also pointed out in a recent speech that the consensus in the scientific community is that e-cigarettes are far less harmful than cigarettes, and smokers can use e-cigarettes to help quit smoking.

The World Health Organization's official statement on quitting smoking is "Quitting tobacco." Several authoritative studies worldwide have confirmed that e-cigarettes can significantly improve the success rate of smokers trying to quit. The UK government has launched the world's first "Switch to e-cigarettes before quitting" program, which aims to increase the success rate of quitting by providing smokers with free e-cigarettes.

"For smokers, switching to e-cigarettes has many benefits, but the premise is that they choose legal products," said Helen Stokes-Lampard, dean of the UK Medical Academy. It is reported that all domestic legal products are tobacco-flavored products that meet national standards and are sold in legitimate offline stores, while illegal products like "milk tea cups" and overseas fruit-flavored e-cigarettes mainly circulate through micro-business channels. Consumers can avoid illegal products by recognizing keywords like "fruit flavor" and refusing micro-business sales.