Contact with Kingsford

I've wondered about the safety of using smoking chips, e.g., the ones from Kingsford and went to their site to contact them about it. Here's our exchange:

Me: I have a concern with your chips for smoking. I thought wood needed to be preburned (like lump charcoal) to be used for smoking. Otherwise, if you burn fresh wood, like those chips, you add a ton of volatiles to the food as the wood begins to smolder. Can you explain a bit more about the way your wood chips are treated and address the safety of smoking food with them?

Kingsford Guy: Thank you for your recent e-mail about KINGSFORD wood chips. The information you requested will require further research. Unfortunately, it may be several days before we will be able to provide an answer to your question. Once we have the necessary information, however, we will provide it to you by e-mail as promptly as possible.

Having thought about this exchange for the weekend, I'm actually kind of shocked at the Kingsford guys response. I'm more than a little surprised he didn't have this information immediately available. Should be interesting to see what he comes up with researching their own product! Good thing Dr. B's here for an authoritative opinion.