U of U researcher warns of vaping dangers
by Owen Perry
In the last couple months illnesses due to vaping have become prevalent across the country. Several people have been hospitalized with some patients dying. Utah has been one of the leading states when it comes to vaping illness. According to a November Utah Department of Health report, there have been 114 vaping-related illnessesand one death in Utah so far.
Dr. Sean Callahan is an assistant professor in the pulmonary department at the University of Utah Hospital. In an interview on October 25, he had a lot to say about this. Dr. Callahan and other researchers still have not figured out the long term effects of vaping, but relatively new findings about vaping has him very concerned.
“We know that vaping anything can cause damage to the lining of the lungs. And it can affect the immune system in the lungs. But how that progresses over time, we do not know,” said Dr. Callahan.
The image above shows a healthy lung on the left and a lung with severe lung-related illness on the right.
He said numerous times that e-cigarettes can severely damage the immune system and the lungs. Since many of the patients he’s seen are adolescents and young adults, one of the things that concerns him most is that no one knows how vaping will affect people 20 to 30 years from now. Another challenge to research is that different users vape different products at different times.
“We have seen people who smoke all sorts of different things, and then they have different disease patterns.”
Dr. Callahan said that initially people thought vaping was a safer alternative to tobacco. But according to a RAND Corporation study once you start vaping you are much more likely to become addicted to smoking cigarettes in the future.
The amount of teenagers vaping has skyrocketed over the last two years. According to the National Institute of Health, 37% of 12th graders reported vaping in 2018, compared to 28% in 2017. Clearly, high school is hard for many people, and most kids are trying to fit in. Therefore, peer pressure and the temptation of vaping may be hard for some teens to resist. On the other hand, some teens vape to cope with mental problems like anxiety and depression.
Dr. Callahan concludes: “Even once we figure this acute illness out. I really can’t recommend people vape at all because I worry that it is going to cause lung damage that is going to be chronic. It’s not something you will see today or tomorrow, I worry about when you are 50 years old or older.
“So really the big takeaway is please don’t vape. We don’t think it’s safe, we do not have enough evidence to tell you what’s going to happen, and it’s not smart to do.”
This story was updated on January 9, 2020.
