Heath Officials Finally Have a Clue in the Vaping Lung Illness Mystery

Vitamin E acetate is a thickening ingredient found mostly in black market THC products.

nd3000/Getty

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced new lab results on Friday that identify a chemical that may be the cause of recent vaping-related lung illnesses: vitamin E acetate, a thickening ingredient.

Health officials tested lung fluid from 29 people who fell ill after vaping—and detected vitamin E acetate in all samples. The findings are a major step forward in the investigation into the mysterious lung illness that has so far killed 39 people and sickened more than 2,000 people in the US.

“This is the first time,” the CDC’s press release reads, “that we have detected a potential chemical of concern in biologic samples from patients with these lung injuries.” 

Vitamin E, which is found in dietary supplements, cosmetics, and foods like meat, fruit, and vegetables, is typically safe to ingest or apply to the skin, the CDC says. But it may not be safe to inhale. Vitamin E acetate is also a new additive, found mostly in illicit cannabis products, according to marijuana news site Leafly.

Still, it’s still not totally clear whether products containing THC (the psychoactive molecule found in cannabis) or nicotine are to blame, though the results indicate the former: In the 29 lung fluid samples tested by health officials, THC was identified in 82 percent of them; 62 percent of the samples contained nicotine. Most patients reported a history of using THC vaping products, according to the CDC. As I wrote in September, these results reinforce early findings made by state health officials about vitamin E acetate. 

In light of this discovery, it’s worth noting that we don’t know much about the long-term impacts of vaping:

Modern nicotine e-cigarettes have only been around in the United States for a little more than a decade. With a lack of long-term studies, it’s unclear what the health effects will be for users later in life. For example, according to an extensive 2018 report published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, there have been no long-term studies on the effect of nicotine e-cigarettes on cancer in humans, though there is “substantial evidence” that some chemicals present in nicotine e-cigarettes (e.g., formaldehyde) “are capable of causing DNA damage” and could increase cancer risk.

…Cannabis vaporizers have been on the market for about the same amount of time, but because marijuana is still technically a Schedule I drug under federal law, studying it has an added layer of bureaucracy. “Now that it’s being legalized, more and more scientists are trying to study [marijuana], but it wasn’t fully studied before,” Zelikoff says. “There are very few scientific studies.” 

The CDC recommends that people continue to steer clear of vaping products that contain THC and refrain from buying “any type of e-cigarette” off the street.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate