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.
News from:https://www.planetofthevapes.co.uk/news/vaping-news/2022-02-23_us-army-hits-wrong-target-again.html