After a few scary months, the vaping health scare of 2019 seems to be over. And according to experts at the federal government and in the New England Journal of Medicine, we appear to know both who was responsible and how to avoid a repeat of such a scenario ever again.<\/p>\n
As of Feb. 18, severe lung illnesses or injuries linked to vaporizer products \u2014 containing both THC as well as nicotine \u2014 killed 68 people and hospitalized 2,807 in all 50 states and several U.S. territories,\u00a0according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The primary cause of these illnesses and deaths, the CDC wrote in its last and final report on the matter, was indeed an additive called vitamin E acetate, a commonly used food product that is highly hazardous when ingested. The presence of in the lungs of vitamin E acetate, first identified by David Downs of Leafly News as a cutting agent, recently introduced to the illicit market and commonly found in underground vaporizer cartridges, would explain the symptoms, similar to lipiod pneumonia, found in a majority of patients.<\/p>\n And that\u2019 appears to be the last and final analysis, as \u201cdue to continued declines in new\u201d cases the CDC\u2019s Feb. 25 released was its \u201cfinal update\u201d on hospitalizations and deaths nationally, barring any new developments. And with that agency busy with the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic, it\u2019s hard to imagine a months-old scare that appears to have gone away competing for its attention.<\/p>\n So what did we learn, and who can we blame?\u00a0As researchers wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine on March 5,<\/a>\u00a0the vaporizer health scare was indeed an illicit market health scare \u2014 and if you prefer, you could call it \u201cThe Dank Vapes Scare.\u201d<\/p>\n Dank Vapes is a cannabis brand, but one without a trademark or a founder \u2014 it\u2019s simply the packaging used by a significant number of vaporizers found to contain harmful additives.\u00a0<\/p>\n Whether any one person was responsible for the brand\u2019s beginnings is still unclear, but as a team of physicians and public-health experts wrote in the NEJM, \u201cthe most common THC product that was reported [among victims] was marketed under the \u2018Dank Vape\u2019 label.\u201d<\/p>\n The researchers there cautioned that despite the CDC\u2019s findings of vitamin E acetate as the causal agent, \u201cthe definitive substance or substances contributing to injury have not been determined,\u201d but their research was limited exclusively to 98 case patients in Illinois and Wisconsin \u2014 two states in which only illegal cannabis products were available prior prior to Jan. 1, when recreational cannabis was legalized in Illinois. (The state had medical cannabis before that day, but there\u2019s as yet no indication that offending products were obtained via those routes.)<\/p>\n \u201cAll of this supports the theory that the problem was caused by illegal vape additives, which have now been withdrawn from the underground market,\u201d said Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML, in a recent email.<\/p>\n These findings will vindicate backers of legalization that throughout the crisis questioned any link to legal, lab-tested products \u2014 the line that was pushed, repeatedly, without any supporting data, by anti-legalization zealots, chief among them Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM). Playing off of existing fears,\u00a0SAM has managed to convince some states to slow legalization efforts.<\/a><\/p>\n Of course, depending on your point of view, the vape scare ends without any good news for anybody \u2014 especially if you\u2019re a vaper.<\/p>\n \u201cThe CDC recommends that persons not use THC-containing e-cigarette, or vaping, products, particularly from informal sources,\u201d the NEJM article authors wrote. \u201cHowever, evidence is not yet sufficient to rule out the contribution of other chemicals of concern.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTherefore, the best way for persons to ensure that they are not at risk while the investigation continues is to consider refraining from the use of all e-cigarette, or vaping, products,\u201d they added. \u201cRegardless of the ongoing investigation, e-cigarette, or vaping, products should never be used by youths, young adults, or pregnant women.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, do you vape? <\/p>\n The post Vape Illnesses Diminish<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
After a few scary months, the vaping health scare of 2019 seems to be over. And according to experts at the federal government and in the New England Journal of Medicine, we appear to know both who was responsible and how to avoid a repeat of such a scenario everContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,9922,53,3105,1490,11900],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41692"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41692"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41693,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41692\/revisions\/41693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Vape Illnesses Diminish<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"