LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Starting next week, doctors in Kentucky will track patients showing symptoms of severe lung disease who have a history of vaping. This comes after the Center for Disease Control and Prevention issued an emergency health advisory on August 30.
215 possible cases have been reported from 25 states and additional reports of pulmonary illness are under investigation. One patient in Illinois with a history of recent e-cigarette use was hospitalized with severe pulmonary disease and died on August 20.
The CDC, FDA, and state health officials are working together to look into the connection between vaping and respiratory illness.
“While there have no reported cases of severe respiratory illness related to e-cigarette or vaping in Kentucky so far, we remain vigilant in alerting health care providers to be on the lookout for patients with severe respiratory symptoms who report using electronic cigarettes or other vaping devices before they got sick,” said Dr. Doug Thoroughman, acting state epidemiologist for the Department of Public Health in Kentucky.
“State health officials will be sending out a public health alert to clinicians early next week and will investigate any cases reported here to look for common factors and collect information on products that may be the source of the illness.”
Patients have shown symptoms including cough, shortness of breath and fatigue. Symptoms grow worse over a period of days or weeks before admission to the hospital. Other symptoms may include fever, chest pain, nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Most of the cases reported are among adolescents and young adults.
Both Norton Healthcare and University of Louisville hospitals said there haven't been any reported cases in the Louisville area.
Dr. William Lacy, the medical director of Norton Healthcare's pulmonary specialists, said doctors don't know exactly what's causing the illness.
"We think this is more than likely caused by something they're using in their cartridges that's not what they're buying over the counter. Possibly a marijuana or a marijuana substitute. This is unsubstantiated, but that could be what's going on." Lacy said.
Dr. Lacy said he is concerned with teens' use of vaping because of the impact it has on "an immature lung,"
"I think there's a nicotine addiction issue. Even if you get a branded product, you don't know what's in the vapor. It's not water, it's got a variety of chemicals in it," Lacy said. "My recommendation would be not to do it. Just straight up, don't do it."
Dr. Lacy said he fears vaping use will have "long-term adverse health effects," especially for teens and young adults. Although, he said it's too soon to know what those effects are.
"This is exactly the same thing that happened with cigarettes 40-50 years ago," he said.
"Think about how long it took for scientists, the public, the nation to really understand what cigarettes were doing. I mean it took decades. And by that time millions of people were sick and addicted. And it took that long to gather the data to finally say definitively 'this is what's happening.' And do you really want to wait 20 or 30 years when your kids are growing up smoking this stuff? I don't."
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