US Army Hits Wrong Target Again
The US Army has launched an attack on vaping but thanks to poor intel it is hitting the wrong target and adding to casualty figures
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by Dave Cross
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In an article carried on its website, the US Army says, “public health officials are warning service members of the risks of using e-cigarette or vaping products”.
It does say that the danger is posed by unregulated products but, given that the FDA has only issued authorisation to one product, it conflates illicit THC liquids with safer vape e-liquids.
“Vaping has been commercially available since the early 2000s, and there have been hundreds of reports of e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury, or EVALI, in the general population since then,” it states.
In saying this, it is engaging in misinformation. There hasn’t been a stream of incidents since the early 2000s, it was a large number of them in one spate in 2019. Despite linking to the Centres for Disease Control, the author of its article appears not to have read anything the CDC has to say.
“Laboratory data show that vitamin E acetate, an additive in some THC-containing e-cigarette, or vaping, products, is strongly linked to the EVALI outbreak” – U.S. Centres for Disease Control (CDC)
Lt. Col. William Washington, Public Health Command Europe’s Chief of Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance, is quoted as saying: “Many of the vaping oils and liquids procured from informal or unofficial sources are unregulated, which increases the risk of containing harmful or potentially harmful substances.”
Washington might want to read up on e-liquid as it doesn’t contain any oil.
He says up to 300,000 active duty service members are diagnosed with acute respiratory issues each year. Either an awful lot of them are using illegal cannabis products or they have other bigger issues to address other than a reduced harm products that saves smokers’ lives.
He claims that the military’s documentation process makes it difficult to state with authority that vaping caused the issues observed. Maybe Lt. Col. Washington could look at the wider population in the United States or overseas in the United Kingdom where he would see no such problem related to vaping?
Lt. Col. Washington continues: “What is clear, however, is that smoking of any kind has the potential to produce serious lung injury, and other more long-term health problems including cardiovascular disease, lung disease, and premature death.”
His statements lie at odds with everything we know about vaping based on independent UK research.
For the record, the CDC now states:
- Emergency department (ED) visits related to e-cigarette, or vaping, products continue to decline, after sharply increasing in August 2019 and peaking in September.
- National and state data from patient reports and product sample testing show tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-containing e-cigarette, or vaping, products, particularly from informal sources like friends, family, or in-person or online dealers, are linked to most EVALI cases and play a major role in the outbreak.
- Vitamin E acetate is strongly linked to the EVALI outbreak. Vitamin E acetate has been found in product samples tested by FDA and state laboratories and in patient lung fluid samples tested by CDC from geographically diverse states. Vitamin E acetate has not been found in the lung fluid of people that do not have EVALI.
Photo Credit:
Photo by Justin Campbell on Unsplash
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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