A person has died from a vaping-related condition
techcrunch.com
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I think the best article I've found is at the BMJ: https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l5228 - sorry, paywall. Very much inconslusive at the moment completely in the public health triage stage.
Good idea to regulate it properly. I just stopped vaping after a 20 year intermittent tobacco problem + 5 years of vaping[1]. Stopping vaping is massively easier than giving up cigarettes in my experience.
[1] for almost that entire time I just went unflavoured. Less hassle and less potential for contaminants.
I really enjoyed vaping, probably more than smoking, but somehow it did not seem to have the same addictive effect on me as smoking had. I did not find it that hard to stop cold turkey.
The addictive effect of nicotine seems much enhanced by the addition of a monoamine oxidase compound (ie related to the early antidepressant drugs) - which is present in burning tobacco - which seems to take nicotine from approximately as addictive as caffeine to more addictive than heroin (citation available).
(No offense to the parent poster intended, I likewise have played games with this same time bomb multiple times now)
Nicotine by itself isn't much addictive until mixed with stuff called MAOIs. Here's an earlier post of mine that gives a bit more detail https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20536162
Having used chewing tobacco, I can say it's got a hell of a kick more than plain nicotine tablets.
See this literature review from Gwern for more information. [2]
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_inhibitor
The Kings County Department of Public Health, in rural central California, said it identified eight patients between ages 18 and 60 who developed lung illness after vaping products with CBD oils they had bought from unlicensed vendors.
Imagine if we woke up to news stories saying eggs were contaminated by salmonella. And nothing else. Just a blanket fearmongering piece about eggs across the board with no mention of which producer in which region was affected, no information about what timespan the affected eggs were purchased in, nothing. Just 'people are getting sick from eggs and doctors cant guarantee you aren't next!'
Nailed it.
Exactly this. Someone has just died, and spokespeople from official organizations whose very job is protecting public health seem to be playing some sort of a secrecy game. Pardon me if this sounds conspiratorial, but I have a feeling the way this is being handled has some financial motivation behind it. If not, then why not just tell the whole truth of what is known?
EDIT: on the bright side, several reporters seem to be onto their game, but officials are doing a fantastic coordinated job of playing dumb farmer. I imagine the strategy is to let this stretch out for as long as possible then let the media sensation wither and release the facts when no one's paying attention anymore.
https://www.reddit.com/r/electronic_cigarette/comments/culh6...
According to vape vendors in my country, it's not.
https://vapourium.nz/blogs/vaping-101/whats-the-story-with-d...
"Diketones such as diacetyl, acetoin and acetyl propionyl are present in a number of these flavourings as they add an authentic buttery and creamy taste to the e-liquids produced by many manufacturers."
The idea that conscious consumers reading ingredient labels will solve 100% of such a problem is also kind of silly. Look at the obesity problem as an example of how well labeling works - it's possible to read the labels and be careful about your food intake, but most do not.
[1] https://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2015/12/new-study-finds...
I think it's completely presumptuous when people tout vaping as being much safer than cigarettes. We didn't all wake up one day knowing smoking was bad - it was a long road filled with politics, science and data.
Vaping is in its infancy and already people's mantras sound like old Camel commercials.
I agree. I'm one of the people who managed to quit smoking using vaping and at one point I had some sort of awakening. After vaping for a couple of years I stopped and asked myself what the hell am I doing? I had countless mods, juices, RDAs, RTAs, etc.. and was a frequent contributor to the electronic_cigarette subreddit. I replaced a vice (I hated) with a hobby and was part of a cult (1). But at least I knew I was taking full responsibility for it. I knew the wattages, coil materials and what went into my juice. Most people buying stuff from gas stations or shady online retailers don't always know what they're doing (see for example the battery venting incidents).
And I stopped. I got rid of everything, vaped only unflavored juice for a while and quit altogether. After a couple of years, I ended up on the electronic_cigarette subreddit again and I was legitimately scared of what I was reading. It's a bubble. 'big tobacco' conspiracies, all doctors advising people to stop vaping are quacks, downplaying all sorts of issues (batteries venting due to shady mod soldering, hardware from China advertised as stainless steel which rusts, silica coils etc..). And nothing would change their minds. Even online vendors have these big-ass disclaimers that they won't take any responsibility for the health effects of their products but that too is classified as a plain old 'CYA' policy so you know.. nothing to worry about. Also, now they're vaping nic salts? WTF is that?
In this particular case, my personal opinion is that was definitely something seriously bad in the juice these people were vaping so I wouldn't panic just yet. Contrary to popular belief, I still believe that the CDC will get the job done and figure out the root cause. It reminds me of the time people started smoking bath salts and ended up in the ER where doctors initially didn't know what to make of it.
But I wouldn't bet any money that in a couple of years we won't find some weird/horrible side effect of vaping which appears only after prolonged use. Let's not forget that people did not get sick from cigarettes instantly...
(1) Small cult checklist:
- The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its ideology
- Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished
- The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself
- The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality (see analog smokers)
- The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members (converting friends/family with starter kits)
alkaloids (like nicotine) all have freebase and salt forms. usually the freebase has a lower boiling point, while the salt is more stable and will dissolve more readily in water. neither is inherently more dangerous than the other, but can yield different levels of efficiency depending how the drug is administered. I'm not sure exactly what advantage salts have over freebase for vaping; I would think the lower boiling point would be advantageous.
Of course, but that's not a practical expectation for most smokers. We have decades of evidence showing that quitting is HARD and that many (most?) will fail. "Just stop" isn't a solution.
No? Even if you don't quit, it's still almost certainly a health win to switch to vaping from cigarettes. If it's a path to quitting for you that's great. Even if someone is not going to quit them, switching is still good.
- smoking is an exceptionally harmful habit, so just by coming up with any other activity at random one is likely to end up healthier
- this also means advising smokers to switch to vaping even without knowing the health effects of vaping makes sense - marketing vaping to non-smokers should be severely limited though
- marketing vaping to kids like juul does, should be downright illegal
do/did they actually do this? I did a quick Google search and I can find a lot of articles making this claim but the only evidence given is that they have twenty-somethings and bright colors in their ads. if this is "marketing to kids", then that bar seems awfully low.
> The curriculum was created by Juul — maker of the very vaping devices that were causing the most alarm among parents, health experts and public officials.
> In April 2017, a Juul representative visited the Dwight School in New York City to meet with students — with no teachers present — and told them the company’s e-cigarettes were “totally safe.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/health/juul-teens-vaping....
this one is pretty damning, but it's only one occurrence. I doubt NYT would have held back if they had any more such anecdotes to offer.
as for the rest of the article, the education programs seem a bit sketchy, but they could just as easily be a poorly conceived PR campaign.
We have decades of experience with terrible tobacco and alcohol companies and that's pretty persuasive that Juul knew what they were doing and didn't care.
That is exactly my point. You're presuming it's healthier, yea? If you can link to any proper long term study saying that, I'd be more than happy to agree with this.
And, as far as I know, the cancer bit is what makes cigarettes so bad.
Not only. The cancer is the long game. The shorter game is the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke. Nicotine is one of the culprits, not the generic 'carcinogens' which you only find in cigarettes.
We've seen a few studies suggesting certain flavoring agents may cause significant problems, has this been investigated as a possible cause?
Keep in mind that “vapor” is used to disguise that, in all cases whether nicotine or pot or etc, people are heating up a substance to its smoke point and inhaling that smoke. They use “vapor” because it sounds like “water vapor” - which is harmless - but it’s definitely not that.
Marijuana cartridges use marijuana oil or MCT oil as a base, for example. Nicotine uses glycol or other substances.
We have very little data on consuming glycol and/or MCT oil smoke. It’s possible that it clogs up the lungs in a way that takes hours to heal per inhalation, and so we’re simply seeing smoke inhalation deaths as we would from an oil factory burning for weeks or something.
(We have limited data on marijuana extract smoke - cold-processed oil is a new-ish innovation, compared to resin which is high in impurities and not easy to consume in significant quantities like marijuana oil apparently is.)
Your heating it to the point it boils and creates vapor. Not to point it burns.
This is not true. It's producing an aerosol, partially by condensation of vapor produced by heating the glycerine and propylene glycol mixture to its boiling point.
It isn't combusting, at least not when everything is working the way that it should, and so is not properly a "smoke".
I also wonder whether it's more efficient in terms of battery use.
Ultrasonic atomization. It's used widely in manufacturing for applying thin-film coatings, because it provides a very consistent and controllable spray of very fine droplets. The technology has been applied to vaping by Usonicig, but it's not hugely popular - most people prefer warm vapour.
Now, whether glycol and such are good things to inhale is another question but I haven't seen any studies pointing to significant issues with these directly, so I'm hesitant to jump the the conclusion suggested here.
So, probably safe...
Do you have evidence for that claim? Because as an asthmatic, I've never encountered an inhaler that contained PG. Apparently it can be used in nebulisers, but unlike inhalers and e-cigs, a nebuliser isn't being used every day.
> One exam, though, picked up something unusual — evidence of abnormal immune cells in his lungs — generally associated with a rare, potentially deadly pneumonia seen in older people who accidentally inhale droplets from oil-based laxatives like mineral oil.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/one-mans-near-death-ex...
No they don't.
SS316 is an option, but not the most common. NI200 is still by far the most common coil material.
I did, however, once buy a THC liquid, from a “reputable” dark web dealer. It was bloody awful - found myself retching and hacking for days after a few small tokes, and it destroyed both the coil and the tank - sticky residue, carbon, bleurgh.
So... given that the other symptoms mentioned are vomiting and diarrhoea, I think this is going to transpire to be dodgy THC liquids, as this also sounds like Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome.
The only good way is somehow lucking out and finding an independent researcher that tests them without financial incentive from the company. Otherwise typically the findings will always be on favor because companies request preliminary data and pull funding to continue research if it looks bad so it doesn't get published
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/e-cigarettes-regulations-for-con...
Vampire Vape, that the GP mentioned, have theirs here:
https://www.vampirevape.co.uk/media/safety-data/attraction-0...
Ex-smoker. The bad tobacco was so much worse, but it didn’t make the good tobacco healthy. It was just smoother and tasted better. It’s no “healthier”.
So, yeah. Everything with a big pinch of salt.
Juuls and many other pens contain limited ingredients, namely nicotine and propylene glycol. We already know what nicotine does.
Propylene glycol is food safe and is also used in albuterol asthma inhalers.
That said, would excessive water vapor trigger an attack? Water based fog machines have been known to[1], but are harmless for most people. The flavorings can add all sorts of bad crap though.
[1]: https://acaai.org/resources/connect/ask-allergist/fog-machin...
I was on a train a few years ago and had a very weird rapid-onset asthma attack while sitting down. I could feel something weird in the air and taste something very bitter. I looked around and someone was vaping behind me. You're not allowed to vape on UK trains so I guess they turned the "smoke" down? There was no visible cloud. Could easily be a coincidence but the lack of regulation for the "carrier" chemicals is a bit worrying.
A Nit : “generally recognized as safe” for use in food.
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/substances/toxsubstance.asp?toxid=...
I personally quit smoking cigarettes and moved from 24mg->3mg of nicotine over a few months (with zero withdrawl symptoms). 3mg is about as low as you can go. You can't do that with smoking cigarettes, "light" cigarettes is mostly just a flavour profile with only small differences in health and nicotine levels.
With cigarettes there were plenty of people who smoked a pack or two a day, those people on a 20yr span are at a higher risk. You see some people who smoke these massive vape clouds and they smoke constantly with high nicotine counts + high heat. Those are all voluntary options and the devices/juice is getting better with time.
Currently nicotine salts are taking over in vape shops, which are smaller devices, smaller amounts of liquid but higher nicotine-liquid ratios, and they have a much smaller exhale clouds which I find easier on the chest and way less anti-social when outside (the exhaled cloud is 10-50% of the size of a normal cigarette, and way smaller than traditional vapes).
Finally, there's second-hand smoke. There was a study showing vape smoke creates extremely small or non-existent second-hand transmission compared to cigarettes. Cigarette smoke stays in the air in a inhale-able state far longer.
> According to Drexel University toxicology expert Igor Burstyn, while the contents of e-cig vapor inhaled by users “justifies surveillance,” there is so little contamination in exhaled vapor that there is unlikely to be any risk.
https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1...
^ This is a big deal for anyone who grew up with a parent who smoked around them like I did.
Walking behind someone who was vaping recently is one of the least pleasant experiences I’ve had for a while.
Not to mention people could just as quickly harm themselves going to a 7/11 every day to eat carbs or driving a motorcycle or drinking alcohol or engaging in 'extreme' sports. But we people do those things anyway even though there's plenty of science to show it's dumb.
Especially if those 'evils' are a) entirely non-violent and voluntary only affecting the individual and b) are not going away ala drugs and the giant shift towards harm reduction.
People seem to be mixing up the growing pains of a extremely fast-growing new industry and the long-term realities once the legal, health, business, and administrative systems mature and adapt. The rush to immediately ban everything, well before we fully understand it and/or have experimented with less freedom/fun-destroying strategies, while also accurate measures of usage and risk, doesn't help anyone.
I will admit though, the 'think of the kids' people are making quite an effective stir.
What's the harm?
I smoked for a long time, and went on a vape recently, but the ads everywhere (in Ireland/UK) for various vaping services and devices are pretty concerning.
For me, it's harm reduction, but if non-smokers start vaping, that's a net loss.
Coffee addiction is preventable, for instance.
Not sure that's what will happen though.
Motorcycling feels odd in that list of otherwise self-inflicted harms.
Sure, one can run into brick wall in a solo accident. But, often it's someone else that kills the motorcyclist.
You're talking like if you were to run across a live gun range and get shot it's not really your fault, but instead it was the shooter that killed you.
That may be technically true but you knew the risks were basically a certainty and chose to do it anyway.
Worse than walking behind a smoker? Both my mother and a very good friend of mine smoke and I outright told them: you can vape around me, but don't smoke in my presence. I can't stand the smell.
We have no idea if it's "deadly". You skipped a few steps there.
If you cut that in half, that’s a win.
This is what harm reduction is all about.
I'm guessing (and hoping) that more regulation will come down on the vaping industry to make sure whatever oils or additives are controlled so that we can prevent this from happening with future additives they discover.
1) which people? 2) what agenda?
I was shocked by the "no vaping in public parks". I just can't believe that attitude towards non-harming social behaviors. Cigarettes at least had the excuse of the cigarette butts.
Then again, you typically can't drink a beer on a park bench in America, either. Sad state of "freedom" to be honest.
This town had other problems but I'm not sure if this was one of them.
generally, the US seems to be much more permissive towards citizens making bad health decisions (including much tamer warnings on cigarette packs) so I think it's worth asking why vaping is an exception. it makes me at least a little suspicious, although I'm not sure who to point the finger at now that big tobacco companies are acquiring stakes in vape companies.
as a final aside, consider how absurd it is that vapes are banned in SF but you can still buy actual cigarettes at any convenience store.
I, for one, embrace vapetopia -- the cognitive libertarian's dream of mental states on demand.
The fact that California is also seeing incidents would seem to argue against this at least somewhat.
It's certainly possible for this to be bad ingredients, but most of the cannabis-based stuff is mostly legal in California, so there's a decent negative feedback loop if you supply people with garbage.
This entire setup for vaping THC IS garbage. It's just more convenient and cheaper than the products designed specifically for THC methods
There is something going on. It may even turn out to be unrelated to vaping.
However, incidents like these are why the CDC exists.
We've seen it plenty of times when a product comes out and people with an agenda to make money off it say "buy this, it works" and then decades later it is discovered to have been toxic or harmful in some way.
Especially given the nature of this product, skepticism should be the default position.
You can't have it both ways.
Heavy metal, lead, asbestos, radium, etc. don't cause 100+ people to be hospitalized in the span of three months, they work over decades.
The problem is at point of use: the vehicle is vaporized by a simple heated nichrome wire. This fractionates and agglomerates the polymers resulting in a completely different distribution of polymer weights. The results of which aren’t being analyzed.
"People often assume that these e-liquids are a final product once they are mixed. But the reactions create new molecules"
There are vaporizers and liquids to treat very cautiously. Many materials you could make a vaporizer and especially the heating assembly would include hazardous offgassing.
Likewise you would want to be very careful about knowing the source and content of liquids. They are essentially unregulated.
Strangers on the internet selling you ingest to make a small amount of money are not particularly trustworthy.
> That vaping works as a way to quit smoking... seems clear.
Studies have been fairly limited so far, given the recency of e-cigarettes (relative to science's timescale). And the studies that we have seem pretty mixed: some showing benefit over other accepted smoking cessation methods, some not. Some showing higher relapse rates in the e-cigarette group. Nothing about that seems clear to me.