Those who chose to use e-cigarettes need to know the warning signs. These include nausea, vomiting, coughing and fever. Shortness of breath, can become so extreme it can prompt an emergency room visit and supplemental oxygen.
Lung scans show an infiltrate resembling those seen in bacterial or viral pneumonia but no infection has been found on testing
While several of those afflicted admitted using THC-containing aerosols, others used only nicotine e-cigarettes. The NY state authorities suspect the oils used as solvents may be responsible, especially vitamin E acetate. The theory is that the oils combined with THC or nicotine at high temperature are responsible. If it turns out that vitamin E oil combined with THC is the culprit, someone would have discovered how to make cannabis lethal for the first time in 4000 years.
The New England Journal of Medicine advises "e-cigarette aerosol is not harmless; it can expose users to substances known to have adverse health effects, including ultrafine particles, heavy metals, volatile organic compounds and other harmful ingredients".
The CDC has recommended that people stop vaping at least until the exact constituent cause is identified.
Here in New Zealand, thus far we have had no reported vaping related illnesses. But the haste with which the inhalation of an addictive substance, nicotine, was not only normalised but practically endorsed by the Ministry of Health should give us pause.
Vaping industry websites point to the UK's Public Health statement that vaping is 95 per cent safer than cigarette smoking. While I don't pretend to understand exactly what that means, I'm reminded of a Chinese fortune cookie aphorism: 46 per cent of statistics are made up. Abstinence from vaping and from smoking is 100 per cent safer than either one.
At the least let's understand that inhaling anything but air can harm the lungs. Inhaling nicotine which has significant addictive potential is certainly a poor choice.
The lung is a fine filigree of sponge-like material consisting of the tiny air sacs (alveoli) accompanied by fine blood capillaries where the red blood cells transit as they give off CO2 and pick up oxygen to deliver back to the heart and then the body. One of the effects of nicotine is to swell (dilate) those capillaries. Over time that dilatation makes the exchange less efficient.
It stands to reason that some of the material carrying the nicotine is potentially damaging over the long run. Yes, the tars and resins in cigarette smoke are worse but the idea that putting anything but pure air into those delicate air sacs is without risk staggers the imagination.
I admit to a strong bias here. Readers know I've developed a breathing problem, one that has nothing to do with my lungs themselves. They're fine. But the fact of my own problem and the respect I have for the anatomy and physiology of pulmonary structure and function - especially function - makes me doubly determined to ask that people refrain from vaping until we know whether or what the harms might be.
There remains room currently for better regulation. And to ask just what the official medical information sources, like the NZMA or the MOH are doing about it to provide meaningful guidance.
