A third person has died in the United States as a result of severe lung disease linked to vaping, officials said Friday, in an outbreak that has sickened hundreds and left several teens in induced comas.
The news of the third death was announced by health authorities in Indiana, as investigators in New York said they were now focusing their probe on black market cannabis products containing vitamin E oil.
Federal officials, however, said that no single substance has been found to be present in all the laboratory samples that are being examined.
In addition to the three deaths announced, “We are aware of one other death that’s under investigation as a possible case,” said Ileana Arias, acting deputy director for non-infectious diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
She added there were now more than 450 possible cases of pulmonary illness associated with vaping, more than double the figure reported last week.
Daniel Fox, a pulmonologist in North Carolina, said that patients he had examined had a type of pneumonia that is non-infectious and called lipoid pneumonia, which “can occur when either oils or lipid-containing substances into the lungs.”
New York’s health department said laboratory test results showed very high levels of vitamin E oil in cannabis cartridges used by all 34 people in the state who had fallen ill after using e-cigarettes, and as a result, was focusing its investigation in that direction.
Vitamin E acetate is a commonly available nutritional supplement taken orally or applied to the skin but can be harmful when inhaled.
The Food and Drug Administration’s acting administrator Ned Sharpless said his agency and the CDC were aware of the reports, “but no one substance, including Vitamin E acetate, has been identified in all of the samples tested” at a nationwide level.
– ‘Don’t do this’ –
The first death was reported in Illinois in late August. Oregon announced this week that the death of a patient in July was also being linked to vaping. Indiana’s announcement did not mention when the death occurred.
Starting in late June, patients reported symptoms including breathing difficulty and chest pain before they were hospitalized and placed on ventilators. Some experienced vomiting, diarrhoea and fever.
The parents of Kevin Boclair, a 19-year-old from Philadelphia, told local news CBS 3 Philly their son had been placed in a medically-induced coma three weeks ago and may require a lung transplant if he ever recovered.
“I even know, as a nurse, he could die,” said his mother Deborah Boclair. “So we are hoping it gets better, and I just want his friends to know and all these kids out there — I could tell the parents, ‘tell your kids don’t do this.'”
Tryston Zohfeld, a 17-year-old from Weatherford in Texas and a student-athlete, was brought to hospital convulsing in a coughing fit and spent 10 days on a ventilator before beginning to make a recovery, his father told CBS news.
The case baffled doctors until a cousin came forward to inform them the pair had been vaping prior to his illness.
Others have recovered, with many receiving steroid treatments, though doctors are not sure whether the drugs caused the recovery.
E-cigarettes have been available in the US since 2006, and are sometimes used as an aid to quit smoking traditional tobacco products like cigarettes.
Their use among adolescents has skyrocketed in recent years: some 3.6 million middle and high school students used vaping products in 2018, an increase of 1.5 million in the year before.
