E-cigarettes are popular all over the world, at the same time, a series of lung disease cases have been triggered, among which more than 2500 e-cigarettes related lung disease patients have appeared in the United States. According to the latest news from the major media, the CDC recently identified the main cause of lung disease and even death cases caused by e-cigarettes.
According to the media reports, the health monitoring system established in the United States after the terrorist attacks in September 2001 was used to find out the cause of the lung injury related to electronic cigarettes that killed 54 Americans and sent more than 2500 people to hospitals.
Using the system, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a sharp rise in lung cases in June.
Anne Schucha, the CDC’s chief deputy director, said the sharp rise strongly points to one culprit: vitamin E acetate, an additive found in the vapors of e-cigarettes containing marijuana.
“This does not mean that no other chemical can or is causing lung injury,” schutzer said at a news conference However, based on additional data on vitamin E acetate found in lung samples damaged by vapors. She attributed most of the condition to this additive.
The CDC is still trying to understand the mechanism by which the substance damages lung tissue. It may interfere with natural fluids in the lungs called surfactants, which help to make the lung tissue elastic, and the by-product of this substance may be another toxic chemical.
Emergency room doctors in Wisconsin first noticed outbreaks of these lung injuries in June. They alerted state and federal health officials, and quickly began investigating the geographic extent of the disease, looking for possible causes.
Investigators focused on the vapors of e-cigarettes containing cannabis extract, especially those purchased online or on the street.
Further research has focused on vitamin E acetate, which is used in some preparations to dilute much more expensive tetrahydrocannabinol oil.
As part of this survey, it is important to know the time when the e-cigarette-related lung disease outbreak occured. U.S. health officials want to know when these e-cigarette-related lung diseases first appeared and whether they missed other cases before the initial report. That’s why they turn to surveillance data collected from more than 3200 emergency rooms in most states of the United States.
They found that since January 2017, the number of emergency room visits in the group who smoked e-cigarettes has gradually increased.
“These visits are not limited to lung damage, so people may also be affected by other health effects,” said Katherine Hartnett, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The researcher said people may also go to the emergency room because of nicotine poisoning, or because of tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
After narrowing the search to people under 35, researchers found a sharp rise in cases in June 2019 – at the same time, doctors in Wisconsin reported their first case.
The number of cases climbed from June to a peak in September. Since then, the number of cases has declined, but the CDC still counts about 100 cases a week, and the number of deaths continues to rise.
On December 20, the U.S. Food and drug administration also announced measures to combat illegal e-cigarettes. The agency seized 44 websites promoting e-cigarettes. The agency has developed an “e-cigarette killing operation” in response to a large number of lung cases caused by e-cigarettes in the United States.
