US health officials warned people not to vape until they determine the cause of a severe respiratory illness, which has killed at least three people and hospitalized many more. Officials are investigating more than 450 possible cases of a severe breathing illness among otherwise “healthy young people”, they said on Friday. Possible cases have been identified across 33 states and one US territory.
Symptoms of the illness include vomiting, nausea, shortness of breath, coughing and chest pain. All confirmed cases appear to have a kind of non-infectious pneumonia, called lipoid pneumonia, developed when oil is inhaled. In all confirmed cases, patients vaped either nicotine or the marijuana constituent THC in the last 90 days. An estimated 9 million adults and 3.6 million US teenagers vape, including 20% of high school students.
One of the things found in common was all patients were using vaped substances in e-cigarettes. They all had abnormal chest x-rays and developed a need for a lot of oxygen. Doctors and researchers are still working to determine whether the phenomenon is new, or newly recognized, and how the cases may be connected.
