Inside a laboratory in suburban Southampton, a corporate display board includes a portrait of Paracelsus, the 16th-century Swiss "father of toxicology". It sits above his most memorable adage: "All things are poison … the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison." Next to this is the logo of British American Tobacco (BAT), whose cigarettes have poisoned to death more people than it would probably care to calculate.
The devices, which BAT sells under its Vype brand, contain filled cartridges of e-liquid. The liquids are mostly propylene glycol and vegetable glycerine, organic compounds used in foods and medicines. They are blended with nicotine and food-grade flavours and turn to vapour when warmed by the battery-powered device.
A decade after e-cigarettes went on sale, we are in the grip of, depending who you talk to, a major health scare or a moral panic. Alarm is even greater in the US, where 42 deaths from respiratory illness have been reported among people with a history of vaping. More than 2,000 lung injuries have also been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the US health agency.
