A 16-year-old Israeli boy was hospitalized in serious condition in the cardiac intensive care unit after smoking electronic cigarettes.
The boy, whose lungs collapsed, was transferred from Kaplan Hospital to the Schneider Pediatric Center and hooked up to an ECMO machine.
Prof. Ovedi Dagan, the director of the cardiac ICU at Schneider said: “The boy was admitted with non-functioning lungs and needs the full support of an ECMO machine. We are treating him and very much hope for an improvement in his condition in the coming days. The damage caused, apparently, by smoking electronic cigarettes, is severe. We call on all parents – prevent the next case.”
Dr. Chavatzelet Yarden Bilevsky, an expert in clinical pharmacology and toxicology at the Schneider Center, said that electronic cigarettes can wreak even more harm than regular cigarettes.
“In the medical literature, there are many reports of lung disease secondary to excessive use of electronic cigarettes, to the point of lung collapse. In some cases, the fillers are independently concocted with various dangerous substances, which increases the risk of even more serious damage, and in this case – the collapse of the lungs of a 16-year-old boy. I call on youth and parents to be vigilant and recommend to stay away from electronic cigarettes and certainly not to use dangerous substances that are independently created.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
So COVID-19 is finally over?
What a misleading headline.
Fine print indicates it was caused by “independently concocted fillers”.
It’s about time YWN should stop copy-pasting orchestrated press-releases from rent-seeking players.
It’s been well documented that unregulated production of so-called “e-juice” can lead to a condition that bears certain similarities to pneumonia.
This condition (EVALI) is thought to be caused by vitamin E acetate coagulating in the lungs.
It is difficult to treat this condition once it has reached the stage of causing lung collapse.
The conundrum he as far as regulation is, on the one hand you don’t want to legalize tobacco products for minors because that will erase decades of progress towards lowering the rates of illnesses caused by tobacco use. While on the other hand, if you don’t allow minors to buy it legally from legitimate brands they will obtain grey market or black market versions which are difficult to ensure don’t cheap out and as harmful chemicals like vitamin E acetate.
Vitamin E acetate is NOT used in nicotine vape products.