If you don’t buy a Sunday Columbus Dispatch, you might have missed a relevant article by The James. The severe lung effects reported in the news media concerning vaping lately are frightening. If a person is a “this is not going to happen to me.” individual, all this attention will be ignored. However, The James and its professionals such as Peter Shields, MD, deputy of The Ohio State University, and thoracic oncologist at the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research institute most likely will disagree with you. He has been quoted to say, “It’s a public health crisis we should all take very seriously from a general long health, cancer risk, and addiction perspective. E-cigs may be safer than smoking, but that is not the same as safe, and we need to know how unsafe they are.”
Students tell teachers that they have convinced their parents that e-cigs are entirely safe. But parents should know the rates of e-cigs, vape pens, vapes, ENDS (nicotine delivery systems) are climbing among young people, and the effects of vaping on the adolescent brain remain untested.
If you are not acquainted with the process of an e-cig, they work “by heating a liquid to produce an aerosol that the user takes into their lungs.” (The James) Ingesting nicotine is not the only purpose of the product. THC and other drugs are also ingested into the lungs. Now, just like cigarettes, many users have found ways to increase higher levels of nicotine and THC liquids. Many users are unsure of the levels they are inhaling.
In the article, it mentions the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “only recently identified the outbreak of serious lung injury related to vaping. As of late October, 2019, more than 1,600 vaping related lung injuries and dozens of deaths had been reported across the 49 states” (The James).
There is presently research going on at The Ohio State University. For more information about the current recruitment for these studies at the OSUCCC-James, visit go.osu.edu/tobacco-research or Ecig-study@osumc.edu.
Danger - Adolescents and E-Cigs