Generally they were in the C-12, C-14, and C-16 BAC compounds and we measured both plasma levels and urine levels in the pilot study using LC/MS/MS analysis of biofluids from healthy volunteers.
We also identified some metabolites, which showed up rather rarely in urine.
The FDA is looking at the toxicology of this class of compounds, but I think it a little premature to characterize them as being definitively linked to "serious health problems." Although they are structurally very different, we have related compounds that are very important in the physiology of all living things: Acetyl choline is a "quat."
If you have looked at mass spec data from human plasma, you will immediately recognize that there is a human background for these compounds - we followed absorption with SILs - and yet we are all alive and many of us have yet to develop serious diseases.
As a scientist who has actually worked in this area, I find the rhetoric utilized by the journalist to be way, way, way, way over the top.
The original paper is in the ASAP section of a journal I read regularly, although right now because of travel, I am two or three issues behind. I have not read the paper yet, but when I get to the issue in which it is published I'll put it on the list of papers that have professional implications, which is not equivalent to saying I will necessarily agree with the paper.
For the record: Simply declaring a paper "peer reviewed" is not synonymous with declaring it "true," although journalists, almost all of whom clearly lack scientific educations, tend to represent them as such. I see "peer reviewed" papers all the time with which I emphatically disagree or which I find to be disingenuous. In judging all things, critical thinking is an important part of the process.
We have a wonderful website worthy of occasional perusal called "Retraction Watch," which covers honest retractions and retractions based on discovered fraud: Retraction Watch.
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