Chancing It
Chance Ammirata claims JUUL pods caused his lung to collapse and is now campaigning to “end vaping” with crank organisation Parents Against Vaping
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by Dave Cross
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Chance Ammirata says he vaped a pod every couple of days which, when it comes to flagrant liars, is pretty pathetic. Luka Kinard at least had the decency to invent a story about him getting through four pods a day. Ammirata points to an image of his holed lung and lays the blame squarely on minty pods.
Ever the paragon of professional reporting standards, the Mail Online has regurgitate Ammirata’s trite guff without a second thought – or bothering to seek confirmation from the doctors involved in treating him. Afterall, everybody knows that teenage boys never lie.
Instead of corroboration, the online clickbait sewage pipe spews forth with “acetaldehyde, formaldehyde and acrolein” and “benzenes and diacetyl flavouring”. It speaks of Ammirata being a would-be entrepreneur and activity junkie.
That is the way with these types of stories; they cover up the lack of fact by detailing a wholesome life. It was the same for Luka Kinard. When he made up his 4-pods story he was an “Honour roll student” and an “Eagle scout”. No counsellors commented on his anger management sessions, no paediatricians, cardiologists or neurologists commented on his claimed seizure.
At no point did the journalists covering Kinard’s story bother to question his prescribed medicine for his depression either. He was taking Bupropion, which warns: “This drug may rarely cause seizures. Seek immediate medical attention if you experience a seizure. If you have a seizure while taking bupropion, you should not take this drug again.”
It must have been the vapes.
Except it isn’t.
The black spots Ammirata attributes to vaping are symptomatic of a precursor to spontaneous pneumothorax. The spots (called blebs) are blister-like air pockets on the lining of the lung.
While smoking and smoking cannabis have been implicated in their formation, they can be found in tall, thin healthy young men. When the bleb ‘pops’ it causes a lung collapse. Clinicians know this and would have told Ammirata.
No, it must have been the vapes.
While Kinard’s mother threw him into a rehab program, Ammirata’s has encouraged him to throw his lot in with the idiots at Parents Against Vaping (PAVE). PAVE has recently caused a stir due to the makers of the film ‘You Don’t Know Nicotine’ cosying up to them. The bored housewives running the organisation frequently share lies on the PAVE Twitter account, but ‘You Don’t Know Nicotine’ recently defended them by saying they supported vaping as a smoking cessation tool.
Supporting vaping comes in many different forms but we’ve not come across ‘petitioning for it to be banned’ before: “By signing this petition you are agreeing to put your right foot forward in the pursuit to end vaping for yourself and the people around you.”
“Every day we need to fight to help not only ourselves but the ones we love put down the nicotine. This epedemic [sic] has taken enough. We don’t need more evidence telling us just how bad it is.”
The one question these journalists never ask: “How come these events only ever happen in America?”
Resources:
- Blebs, Bullae and Spontaneous Pneumothorax – [link]
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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