Should vaping be made illegal?
After a teenage boy almost died due to his vaping habit, Closer speaks to Simah Herman who has started a campaign to ban the cigarette alternative...
They were once seen as a “safe” alternative to smoking – but some health experts are now calling for a ban on electronic cigarettes after a teenage boy almost died from serious respiratory failure.
Ewan Fisher, 19, from Nottinghamshire, ended up on life support after suffering from hypersensitivity pneumonitis – an allergic reaction that results in inflammation of the lung tissue. He began vaping in early 2017, when he was just 16, and continued for four or five months before falling ill. After finding it hard to breathe, his mum took him to A&E – where doctors said his lungs were failing.
BRUSH WITH DEATH
Despite being put on a ventilator, the teenager was still unable to get enough oxygen into his body. Eventually, he was attached to an artificial lung, which saved his life.
Ewan is still not back to full health and his doctors say vaping is to blame for his brush with death. Dr Jayesh Mahendra Bhatt, who treated Ewan, said that breathing in the vapour caused an “overexuberant inflammatory response” and that “the lungs pay a price and develop respiratory failure”.
The news comes after an unnamed 17-year-old boy, from Michigan, became the first patient in the US to undergo a double lung transplant as a result of smoking e-cigarettes.
IRREVERSIBLE
The teen was forced to have both of his lungs removed last month after he was left facing “imminent death” from vaping injuries. Dr Hassan Nemeh, who was one of the surgeons to carry out the six-hour procedure, is now urging people to warn their children about the “irreversible” potential dangers of e-cigarettes.
And in shocking new research released last week, a team of cardiologists based in Germany claim vaping could damage the brain, heart and blood vessels, as well as lungs.
However, scientists are increasingly divided over whether vaping causes serious harm to our health, with some suggesting these kinds of lung diseases can occur spontaneously, without any obvious triggers. And despite mounting evidence being published on the risks associated with e-cigarettes, Public Health England (PHE) maintains vaping is 95 per cent less harmful than tobacco.
Vaping involves using electronic cigarettes to inhale nicotine in a vapour rather than smoke. The device doesn’t contain any tobacco, and can’t produce tar or carbon monoxide, which are two of the most harmful elements in cigarette smoke. The liquid and vapour contain some potentially harmful chemicals also found in cigarette smoke, but at much lower levels.
The financial cost of vaping is also much lower than cigarettes, with the average twenty-a-day smoker spending roughly £3,000 a year. Liquid vaping cartridges have an annual bill of around £900. According to the charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), 3.6 million Brits currently use e-cigarettes, and the majority are ex-smokers who are using the devices to help them quit their habit for good. However, the proportion of vapers who have never smoked before is at 6.1 per cent this year compared to 1.8 per cent in 2014.
Teenager Simah Herman,
18, knows just how damaging vaping can be, after she was admitted to hospital with lung failure and pneumonia.
She has since launched an online plea to ban the use of vapes. Simah, who lives in California, USA, says, “The first time I used a vape pen was in 2016, when I was 15. I’d tried normal cigarettes before, but they never really appealed to me. Most of my friends used e-cigarettes on a daily basis and I was curious to know what all the hype was about, so I saved up and bought one for myself.”
ADDICTIVE
What started out as a social habit became addictive for Simah. She says, “I was soon taking a hit every 15 minutes and couldn’t leave the house without it. I’d fund my £40-a-week habit by skipping lunch and babysitting.
“Eventually, I was vaping one liquid cartridge a day. My favourite flavours were mango, berry, and cotton candy.
“Despite being underage when I started vaping, I could always get hold of liquid cartridges because my local
smoke shop didn’t ID me.”
But in October 2018, after three years of vaping, Simah’s health started to decline.
She says, “I began suffering with migraines followed by intense nausea. I lost 3st 7lbs and felt so weak. My mum took me to see the doctor several times and would patiently wait outside while I discussed my symptoms. I was always honest about my vaping habit, but it was never flagged up as an issue. The doctors were clueless as to why I was so ill. My health progressively got worse and this August, I woke up hyperventilating and unable to breathe.”
Simah’s dad, Eli, 50, took her to hospital. She remembers, “When we were in the car, I kept saying, ‘Don’t let me close my eyes or fall asleep because I won’t wake up.’ Within minutes, I was hooked up to oxygen to help me breathe. They brought in teams of doctors and did a scan, which showed a mysterious white haze at the bottom of my lungs.
LIFE SUPPORT
“Medics initially thought it was pneumonia, but after 72 hours, my scans showed my condition had worsened. They’d never seen a decline happen that fast and eventually decided to put me on life support. I was the first case in that hospital to have illness due to vaping. They tested me for everything it could possibly be, and the tests all came back negative.
“After there was no change, doctors put me in a medicallyinduced coma. While I was unconscious, doctors told my mum that they believed my condition was due to my e-cigarette habit.”
Simah was brought out of the coma after three days. She says, “When I woke up, the only way I could communicate was by writing, because I had a tube in my throat. I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote, ‘I want to start a no vaping campaign’. My mum took a picture and posted the image on my Instagram account. I never expected it to go viral, I just hoped to get ten of my friends to stop for good. But now I get lots of people messaging me asking for advice on how to quit, and saying I’m the reason they’ve chosen to stop.
“It took almost dying for me to quit vaping. The dangers of e-cigarettes are real, and this can happen to anyone.
I’m proud to share my story and warn others of the deadly effects of them.”