PAXboy
Indeed, transparency is EVERYTHING. Boeing (I can be fairly sure) have not yet adjusted to the world where a single line of ill informed text, can travel around the globe in a single minute - and hit the headlines on the return leg.
And yet once something is said, it's very difficult to contradict it. Consider the "Applebee's Incident" - even though Applebee's Corporate have issued shedloads of statements supporting the assaulted employee, the Internet still rages against the company accusing them of being discriminatory against that assaulted worker because none of those raging have bothered to look past the original posting.
Mark in CA
As I have read posts on this thread, I recall some saying this is not true, that the reaction in the cells creates its own oxygen.
Independent laboratory tests have shown that the amount of oxygen released by a cell in thermal runaway is very small.
Based on what I have read from the NTSB and Boeing, the fire aboard JA829J at BOS was caused by the plastic inside the battery box and protruding from it igniting from the thermal heat generated by the batteries as they melted. It appears that the batteries themselves did not catch fire, but they didn't need to in order to melt and eject liquified electrolyte due to the amount of heat being generated inside the cells.