The CDC and the FDA are temporarily urging people to stop vaping after five deaths were potentially linked to the use of e-cigarettes .

. The CDC also said it received 450 cases suspected to be a result of vaping-related illnesses.

Over recent months, some city and state governments have taken measures to ban either the sale of all e-cigarettes or the sale of flavored vaping products.

Vaping Illnesses and First Deaths

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration are asking people to stop using e-cigarettes, at least temporarily, following reports of five deaths possibly tied to vaping-related illnesses.

Specifically, the FDA is warning people not to use cannabis vaping products following a statement from the New York State Department of Health last week. In the statement, the department said it potentially linked 34 cases of “severe” pulmonary illness to an oil found in cannabis vaping products.

The warnings come after the reported deaths an adult in Indiana, a 55-year-old adult in California, and a 65-year-old in Minnesota. So far, officials have only linked cannabis vaping use with the individual from Minnesota, who was already known to have a history of lung disease.

The reports also follow two deaths from Illinois and Oregon.

“When you think about it, these e-cigarette devices are really like chemistry sets,” Dr. Jonathan LaPook told CBS News. “You put in this liquid, you lick it, you heat it up – there’s some kind of chemical reaction. You’re creating all these different chemicals. You’re not entirely sure what these chemicals are, but we are sure of one thing: You are sucking a lot of them.”

Notably, the New York State Department of Health says it believes some of the products in its investigation may be counterfeits of the state’s medically-approved marijuana, though the person who died in Oregon appears to have purchased the product legally. Because of this, officials aren’t sure if this is a problem with legal vaping products, off-the-street vaping products, or both.

Federal health officials have also now logged 450 cases across 33 states suspected to be from vaping-related illnesses.

Monday morning, the FDA issued a warning letter to Juul for “engag[ing] in labeling, advertising, and/or other activities directed to consumers, in which JUUL explicitly and/or implicitly has represented that JUUL products are free of a substance, have a reduced level of or exposure to a substance, and/or that JUUL products present a lower risk of tobacco-related disease or are less harmful than one or more other commercially marketed tobacco products.”

A String of Illnesses

In April, health departments in Illinois and Wisconsin followed 53 patients who had vaped, with a third of those people ending up on respirators.

In August, the Washington Post reported that “Within days, [one man] had gone from being a 20-year-old hiking enthusiast to being kept alive by two machines forcing air into and out of his lungs and oxygenating his blood outside of his body.”

Around the same time, the CDC was reportedly investigating almost 200 vaping-related respiratory illnesses.

In the New York State Department of Health investigation, health officials believe some of the illnesses may result from vitamin E acetate, an oil derived from vitamin E and used in cannabis vaping products.

While the health department said patients in the case had used a variety of vaping products, all of them admitted to using cannabis-vaping products.

Vitamin E acetate is a product found in foods like canola oil and almonds. It is safe to eat and apply to the skin, but health officials fear it may be dangerous to inhale. Oils are naturally fatty substances, and the lungs are unable to process them, meaning that when the oil is breathed into the lungs as a vapor, it soon cools down and liquefies in the lungs.

Neighboring immune cells will then work to get rid of the fatty oil, potentially leading to inflammation and difficulty breathing. Other symptoms include vomiting, nausea, and diarrhea.

As of yet, no agency has concluded that vitamin E acetate is responsible for the illnesses. The FDA is also investigating other possible contributing agents like TCH, nicotine, synthetic cannabinoids, pesticides, or opioids.

“No one substance, including vitamin E acetate, has been identified in all of the samples,” the FDA said in a statement.

Regulating E-Cigarettes

E-cigarettes have raised the eyebrows of health officials since the product exploded onto the market without FDA approval.

Vaping companies like Juul have marketed their products as healthier than cigarettes and have promoted them as tracks to quit smoking altogether.

In June, San Francisco banned the sale of e-cigarettes.

San Francisco To Become First U.S. City to Ban E-cigarettes



READ MORE: https://t.co/0e04wn40Ec pic.twitter.com/eytVrfMbrR — Rogue Rocket (@TheRogueRocket) June 26, 2019

Last week, the governor of Michigan used executive authority to ban flavored nicotine vaping products. That order will last six months, and it’s largely been seen as an attempt to keep e-cigarettes out of kids’ hands, with people arguing that fun flavors get kids addicted. Others, however, have argued that the flavors could help adults quit smoking tobacco cigarettes.

On Monday, reports surfaced of an Alabama school removing some of the stall doors from a boys’ restroom to stop teens from using e-cigarettes in school. Many people then called the move excessive, but the principal said he’d already found a student passed out after vaping too much.