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A person has died from a vaping-related condition
- Alex3917 7y agoMeh. Even if they kill 100,000 Americans per year, that would probably be one of the greatest public health wins in history.
- rubidium 7y agoMaybe this is just my impression, but it seemed like smoking was falling out of favor among younger generations until vaping came along.
- sk5t 7y agoAnd suppose it's 1 million lives per year after a 10-year ramp-up period?
- adrianN 7y agoThat's pretty unlikely.
- stjohnswarts 7y agoWhy would there be a "ramp up" period. The number of vapes is going up rapidly, but the death rate would likely stay the same unless someone started suddenly spiking the vape liquid with lead or something. If anything it would go down as the possible culprits causing deaths are discovered and eliminated.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dmix 7y agoJust like smoking it's important that those 10yrs have context around the deaths, assuming they ramp up, it's not just all vape usage = high risk. It's how you use it too. 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/10.1186/1471-2458-14-18 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.
- macintux 7y agoIt’s hard to get enthusiastic about something deadly and noxious just because it’s less noxious than something truly awful. Walking behind someone who was vaping recently is one of the least pleasant experiences I’ve had for a while.
- dmix 7y agoA whole lot of society and social policy is about lesser of evils. It's about being realistic and practical. Which is something far more policy should be conscious of, instead of some idealistic perfect world you wish to impose on other people. 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.
- refurb 7y agoThis is true. Our starting point isn’t zero deaths, it’s the hundreds of thousands of people in the US who die due to smoking tobacco. If you cut that in half, that’s a win. This is what harm reduction is all about.
- Alex3917 7y agoTobacco currently kills about 500,00 Americans per year, according to the CDC, so 100,000 would be way less than half.
- apta 7y agoYou can easily cut them not just in half, but completely, by banning smoking.
- stallmanite 7y agoRight. This is why there have been no methamphetamine or heroin related deaths and for over 100 years. /s
- apta 7y agoNot the same comparison at all.
- stjohnswarts 7y agoIt's waaaaaaaayyyyy early to blame this on "vape lung". Always be skeptical of people who have an agenda to eliminate something.
- dmead 7y agobe skeptical of people who don't want another generation of smokers? should I be skeptical of them or you?
- Clubber 7y agoSo don't smoke. There you've done your part.
- yoz-y 7y agoSmoking and vaping, unlike other vices like drinking or hard drugs, have the property of dragging in all of your entourage should they want it or not.
- Clubber 7y agoThere's a very toxic part of our society who wants to control what millions other people do, "for their own good." This type of article is a dog whistle to those type of people.
- dmead 7y agoyea, it's most people that are like that. i think libertarians letting shitting things happen is far worse.
- jahewson 7y agoSome skeptic’s questions: 1) which people? 2) what agenda?
- refurb 7y ago
- buildzr 7y ago> As the mechanism is unknown, it’s unclear what the actual danger is. Is it some byproduct of the nicotine cartidges, or THC ones? Is it the vapor itself? Is it only at certain temperatures or concentrations? Is it directly affecting the lungs or entering the bloodstream? No one knows yet — all they’ve seen is an sudden uptick in respiratory or pulmonary issues where the sufferer also uses vaping products. We've seen a few studies suggesting certain flavoring agents may cause significant problems, has this been investigated as a possible cause?
- floatingatoll 7y agoAnother vector of harm to consider — 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.)
- singingfish 7y agoI'm guessing that if this really is associated with vaping then it's likely due to the limited regulation of the ingredients. Bad batch of VG/PG/nicotine? Some problematic flavouring? I think the best article I've found is at the BMJ: https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l5228 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.
- chrstphrhrt 7y agoI wish it were easier to distinguish vaping dry flower from liquids. They aren’t the same but I hate calling my pax a vape for some reason.
- dr_dshiv 7y agoIQos is calling it "heeting". Yeah, I don't see that taking off. Vape is just a pretty slick word, as words go. It's got everything! Unusual consonants, primates, rhymes with cape... It's gonna be hard to beat.
- imafish 7y agoSimilar story here. Smoked for ten years. Actually found it easy to replace smoking with vaping (strong menthol). Stopped vaping after 1 year because I was suffering from GERD and suspected that vaping was an attributing factor. Since I stopped 5 years ago, my GERD symptoms have more or less disappeared. 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.
- singingfish 7y agoI stuck with it for 5 years because I was paranoid about relapse to cigarettes. Spent a couple of weeks in countries where vaping is illegal as a dry run, earlier this year, and then just waited for the juice to run out. 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).
- beardedman 7y agoSo I've been saying something like this for years now. HOW do we know something is not going wrong without any long term/clinical data (ESPECIALLY around these custom flavours that people sometimes roll out themselves)? 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.
- decebalus1 7y ago> 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)
- javadocmd 7y agoWorth noting that the author makes a significant claim without any citation: > 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.
- magoon 7y ago“Vaping” can often mean people filling mod boxes (not Juuls) with any sort of juice containing anything. Articles and studies often include any random juice in any random shop, so there are endless unknowns. 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.
- ceejayoz 7y agoFood safe and inhalation safe are not the same thing. Try vaping some habanero oil to have the difference made clear.
- EpicEng 7y agoIt's used in asthma inhalers as well (of course, minus flavorings and with stricter quality controls.)
- dazzawazza 7y agoVaping fumes trigger my asthma, there is all sorts of stuff in the second hand smoke. The smoking ban in the UK basically stopped me being admitted to hospital every few years and I appreciate that most bars/clubs have banned vaping inside (certainly in London).
- EpicEng 7y agoI vape and I'm with you in that we cannot just assume it's benign. You do have to be careful of some studies which have shown things like Formaldehyde though as the conditions (far too hot, burning cotton, etc.) we just wrong. 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-machines-and-asthma https://acaai.org/resources/connect/ask-allergist/fog-machin...
- 7y ago
- mikevm 7y agoIs vaping using things like DynaVap safer than other types of vaporizers?
- colechristensen 7y agoLikely nobody can say with any amount of certainty. 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.
- jowsie 7y agoThe DynaVap is a dry herb vaporiser. No liquids involved. As such, I'd assume it's as safe as whatever you put in it.
- colechristensen 7y agoThe materials it is made of will still vaporize themselves a bit and what they are and how it is constructed still can have health impacts. Not that they will or won't, but that they could and it's hard to trust anyone.
- OrgNet 7y agoSome people spray herbs with some other drugs to make them more potent and/or addictive
- SolaceQuantum 7y agoI’m less interested in speculation and more interested in the CDCs claims once it’s investigation has been concluded. Please do note that the claim specifically posits there exists a cluster of illnesses associated with vaping and that one person has died from it- not that only one person had ever had this disease. This makes it interesting. I hope the cause can be founds soon, given The popularity of vaping in teens.
- Zenst 7y agoHowever you look at this the take away from it all should be: Get a vape and liquid from a large reputable supplier (keep receipts) and should we suddenly find that this is the next product to have warning and danger signs slapped all over due to health concerns, you have a large reputable supplier you can sue, ala the original tobacco scandals.
- jimhefferon 7y agoI perceive that this is the take-away: don't, just don't.
- Zenst 7y agoIndeed, a qualifier of "If you are going too..." was a given, but yes, the don't do it holds.
- wellpast 7y agoOr - don’t smoke?
- Zenst 7y agoExactly, but for those that do pursue such activities, that would be the prudent approach. Though I wouldn't count it as a pension plan as some may well do :/. Though if you ever do get a pension annuity plan, apparently smoking whilst you fill out the form and filling in that aspect, does get you more money and one of those area's that could be classed as gaming the system. Why that is - well, they expect you to die sooner, hence you get a better rate compared to somebody who their actuaries expect to live say 20 years longer and curtail paying out more over a longer period. Also one of those exceptions in which bad health, or perceived bad health works in your favour.
- snarfy 7y agoI smoked cigarettes for about 25 years and switched to vaping about 5 years ago. My anecdata is it's the flavorings which are most harmful. I had a pretty consistent cough from cigarettes which got a little better after switching to vapes, but it really depended on the flavor. Some flavors were much more harsh and the cough would return. It didn't go away until I switched to completely unflavored juice.
- Proven 7y agoA person has died from an eating-related condition (food poisoning) Trash-crunch
- gumby 7y agoI’d worry about the excipients (e.g. PGA). Several molecular weights are deemed GRAS (“Generally Recognized As Safe”) thus their use is unregulated (of course as bulk polymers, “molecular weight” is really just the fat part of the distribution). 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.
- rhacker 7y agoI don't smoke or vape. I think the world is way better off vaping than smoking. I certainly do hope whatever caused this is discovered. I would hate to see more cigarettes light up again. 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.
- apta 7y agoHow about putting a ban on smoking of all sorts? Seems pretty straightforward.
- stallmanite 7y agoAwesome, can’t wait to replicate the resounding successes of alcohol and drug prohibition. Alcohol usage dropped to zero throughout the 1920s and there were no unintended consequences right?
- apta 7y agoStrawman fallacy. Just ban smoking outdoors (like how it's banned indoors in public places).
- innovateee 7y ago“We do know that e-cigarettes do not emit a harmless aerosol,” he explained. “There’s a variety of harmful ingredients identified, including things like ultrafine particulates, heavy metals like lead and cancer causing chemicals. And flavoring used in e-cigarettes to give it a buttery flavor, diacetyl, it’s been related to severe respiratory illness.” "People often assume that these e-liquids are a final product once they are mixed. But the reactions create new molecules"