Vaping Update: Policy Versus Reality

We covered the news on recent vaping related lung injuries a couple months ago but a lots happened since then time for an update this is healthcare triage news as of November 13th over 2,000 cases of vaping related lung injury have been reported in the United States and

In US territories and 42 deaths have been confirmed one team even received a double lung transplant due to extensive tissue damage after vaping initial investigations pointed to THC containing products vitamin E acetate and black

Market vaping products in general as potential culprits in the sudden epidemic the CDC has now confirmed that vitamin E acetate is a definitive chemical of concern though evidence is not yet sufficient to rule out the

Contribution of other chemicals laboratory testing of lung fluid from 29 patients from 10 different states detected vitamin E acetate which is likely used as a thickening agent in THC containing vape products of the samples

Tested 82% were found to contain THC and 62% were found to contain nicotine given this information the CDC recommends against using THC containing vaping products particularly those purchased from informal sources including friends

Family or in person and online dealers they also recommend against using any vaping product that has been modified after being purchased from a formal retail establishment modified of course includes the addition of anything to the

E-liquid like vitamin E acetate responses this epidemic was Swift and included proposals to raise the legal purchasing age to 21 banned flavored vape products and even included the removal of vaping related apps that

Allow users to control program belay pens from their phones though the current administration recently backed down from promises to ban flavored vaping products these and other reactions are good examples of policy

Not matching reality even in the beginning we had evidence to suggest that products purchased from legitimate sources were not really the problem vaping offers an arguably safer alternative to individuals trying to

Quit traditional cigarettes and a large number of people protested against the ban with personal stories about how vaping helped them kick their tobacco habit there's some merit to the idea of banning flavored products too

Dress rising rates of vaping among youth but those rates have been rising for a while and the proposal of banned flavors was only introduced when this epidemic started to spread if banning flavored a liquids results in

Individuals turning back to their tobacco habit the harms may outweigh the benefits instead we might consider options like targeting the way these products are marketed and sold to youth if banning of legal vaping products

Forces people to turn to homemade products which caused the problem in the first place that's bad too this isn't the first that it probably won't be the last time I say it health policy too often fails to be evidence-based and

Reality based we can do better Haeju enjoyed this episode you might enjoy this other episode on vaping and lung cancer is there a link another good way to support the show is by going to patreon.com slash healthcare triage

Where you like our surgeon admiral sam and our research associate joe seventh can help make the show bigger and better