But in avoiding one potential contaminant, the largely unregulated vaping industry opened the door to a host of others. With smoking, of course, we now know that those potentially harmful byproducts, include tar and carbon monoxide, ingredients e-cigarettes were specifically designed to sidestep. While the way they generate aerosols or gases is different, both smoking and vaping can deliver potentially harmful byproducts in addition to the drug." With vaping, there is typically a heating element powered by a battery that converts the liquid contents of the vape cartridge into a gas or aerosol. Thielen, University of Minnesota fellow in adult and pediatric infectious diseases, offers a helpful explanation: "With both, the goal of the user is to convert the drug - typically nicotine or THC - into a gas form that can be taken into the body by breathing the drug. In order to grasp just how many factors are in play, it's important first to understand the mechanism behind vaping, especially in how it differs from smoking.
That turns out to be an enormous question. Without that overlap, experts have struggled to find a through-line linking the thousands of cases nationwide, and have launched investigations into a variety of possible causes. (As of November 5, Alaska remains the only state that has yet to log a single case.) It has struck patients from ages 13 to 75, with the median age for casualties hovering around 53, even as the median age for an EVALI patient remains at 24.īut while it's tempting to draw conclusions from these statistics, it's also impossible to ignore the outliers, like the 11 percent of cases in which the patient-reported use of exclusively nicotine-containing products, claiming no exposure to THC-containing products whatsoever. Thus far, EVALI has hospitalized patients across 49 states, as well as the District of Columbia and the U.S.
#FLUME VAPE FULL#
Remarkably, a full third of EVALI sufferers have been placed on respirators, a staggering statistic for an illness targeting such a large number of the otherwise young and healthy. That buildup overwhelms the lung's tiny air sacs - known as alveoli - preventing oxygen from circulating to the organs, which makes breathing arduous and ultimately threatens the patient's life.
Many patients have developed acute respiratory distress syndrome, a progressive disease occurring in critically ill patients that's caused by fluid buildup in the lungs.
Sufferers typically report a gradual onset of early symptoms over days or weeks, including respiratory symptoms such as coughing, chest pain, and shortness of breath, as well as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue, fever, and weight loss.Īfter onset, however, the deterioration of lung function is often swift. Whether intentionally or not, it's an acronym that speaks directly to how little is known about the illness thus far, the only solid link between cases is that those who fell ill reported a history of vaping or e-cigarette use. The condition has been given the term EVALI (e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury). What is vaping illness?įirst, let's cover the basics. In the meantime, here's everything we know about the vaping illness so far. But given the limited sample size, it's important not to leap to any conclusions at such an early stage, so all possible connections will continue to be investigated. This marks the first time one particular chemical has been noted across an entire sampling, a potentially crucial breakthrough that the agency is pursuing accordingly. In early November, the CDC took an important step toward linking the known cases, announcing that a recent lab test of fluid collected from the lungs of 29 patients across 10 states revealed the presence of vitamin E acetate in all specimens.
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