I hope this spurs the government into action. NYC is absolutely flooded with perfectly legitimate looking vape cartridges filled with questionable product. They're often sold as being from a "dispensary brand" although they're obviously not. As an example, these were readily available for years despite the fact that the brand never even existed in the first place:<p><a href="https://merryjane.com/culture/are-smart-cart-vapes-legit-and-what-do-fakes-look-like" rel="nofollow">https://merryjane.com/culture/are-smart-cart-vapes-legit-and...</a>
The big problem seems to be that vaping has never been proven to be safe or safer than cigarettes. There's always been the assumption that it is.<p>My suspicion is that something like this outbreak will happen again.<p>I'm not a fan of the vaping companies since their goal seems to be to get users addicted to their product but they should go through the process of proving that vaping is safer than cigarettes so they don't get blamed for the next outbreak. And cigarette users have a choice that's less harmful than smoking cigarettes.
This seemed pretty obvious when all the stories were about cannabis vaping, not nicotine.<p>And now vaping is thought to be unhealthier than tobacco smoking.
Given the highly localised and sudden/synchronised bout of illness associated with vaping, to me it immediately seemed reasonable to assume contamination of a specific batch of products rather than the act of vaping in general being an issue.<p>I'm not saying vaping doesn't perhaps have long term negative effects, just that the pattern of illness suggested an issue with specific products.
This seems to be a rather simplistic/one-sided answer furthering a specific agenda.<p>* The responses that don't fit the narrative that 'legal' vaping is safe are'explained away' in this article - that's just unscientific and a matter of ignoring contrary evidence.
* There are other dangers to vaping ignored in the argument (eg addiction, kids starting even earlier if there's 'bubblegum' or 'cherry' flavour rather than tobacco
* No long term studies, so we really have no idea what's safe and what's not.
* Overall there's no control or standards on the stuff in the vaping juice, so we still don't really know what effect which product might have.
* The bans were not motivated just by the sick people but also the various other factors - so even if true that 'legal'vaping products weren't the cause there are many questions still to be answered.
* ...<p>The world is never so black and white as this article paints it.<p>A) Is vaping better than cigarettes? Maybe. Is it better people switch to vaping? Maybe. Is it better we encourage/aid them to stop smoking and vaping? Absolutely.<p>B) Will flavoured vaping with sweet flavours, wild west unlicensed/non-regulatef ingredients and unchecked advertising get more young people and even children interested and hooked? Absolutely.
Very early on scientists identified vitamin E additives as being the cause. Most black market vapes added vitamin E acetate ,etc.. to enhance the flavor profile of the "carts". Overall this isn't super surprising.
If the headline says that the CDC confirms something, shouldn't a CDC press release or paper be used? Article seems to be from some third party citing this paper[0] and claiming they predicted it before. Title seems a little misleading.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6902e2.htm?s_cid=mm6902e2_w" rel="nofollow">https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6902e2.htm?s_cid=mm...</a>
And again, just as was the case with Boeing, the blame lands squarely on the shoulders of regulators who failed to adequately do their jobs.<p>In the case of Boeing, the regulatory approach was a joke, and in the case of vaping, regulators had their heads in the sand about a multi billion dollar black market for years.<p>The death toll resulting from backward recreational drug regulation in the US is mind boggling, not to mention all those still suffering in prison.<p>People have a knee-jerk reaction of blaming firms and assuming that regulators are doing their best, when in fact regulators are the ones who create the entire (black, gray, etc.) market landscape for all participants to operate in.