CDC Officially Confirms Vitamin E Acetate Top Suspect for Vaping Disease
The CDC announced today that they finally agree with the leading theory of what causes the vaping disease they call EVALI : vitamin E acetate, which is found primarily in THC vapes. The new lung fluid sampling method showed that all patients tested – a convenient sample of 29 people from 10 states – had vitamin E acetate in their lungs.
There has not been such a consistent result for other chemicals suspected of causing the disease, including “vegetable oils, petroleum distillates such as mineral oil, MCT oil, and terpenes.”
82% of the samples contained THC; 62% contained nicotine. This means that some included both. Vitamin E acetate is known to be an additive in THC vapors, especially in some black market cartridges. To date, more than 2,000 people from 49 states have been diagnosed with vaping disease, 39 of whom have died.
The agency says they are still open to consideration of other chemicals as the investigation continues: “While it appears that vitamin E acetate is related to EVALI, there is still insufficient evidence to rule out other chemicals of concern in EVALI.”
While the CDC’s initial warnings included calls to avoid “e-cigarettes,” they finally updated their message to state that by e-cigarettes they do mean vaping products, and that they are now particularly concerned about THC vapes. This does not mean that other vaping products are in their pure form – perhaps some of them also contain vitamin E acetate or another chemical involved – but at this point it looks like the CDC agrees that the vitamin E acetate in THC vaping is what is the most important thing to worry about right now. Here is their latest ad, highlighted in the original:
Recent CDC laboratory studies of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid samples (or fluid samples taken from the lungs) from 29 EVALI patients submitted to the CDC from 10 states found vitamin E acetate in all BAL fluid samples. Vitamin E acetate is used as an additive in the manufacture of e-cigarettes or e-cigarettes. This is the first time that we have detected a potentially harmful chemical in biological samples from patients with these lung injuries.
The CDC continues to advise people not to use e-cigarettes or vaping products, products containing THC, especially from unofficial sources such as friends or family, and from personal or online dealers. We will continue to provide updates as new data becomes available.
Additional information from the CDC on EVALI and the new findings is available here .