Parents confirm case in Colo.

The in-state college student was hospitalized with a lung condition.

As the number of deaths related to a mysterious vaping-related illness increased Friday, the parents of a Colorado college student who was hospitalized with the lung condition are calling on federal regulators to “clamp down” on the makers of e-cigarette devices.

Ruby Johnson’s daughter, Piper, spent a week in a Colorado hospital after developing a severe lung illness that has been linked to ecigarettes. The 18-year-old is a freshman at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, according to her family.

“If our agencies aren’t going to protect our kids right now, then we need to educate our kids and ourselves on the dangers of vaping,” Ruby Johnson said in a statement. “We can’t afford to wait.”

Johnson, who lives in New Lenox, Ill., wrote in a Facebook post that Piper had the first confirmed case of the vaping-related illness in Colorado. A representative with the state health department declined to confirm whether the teen was the first confirmed case.

So far, there are two known cases of the vaping-related illness in Colorado.

In recent weeks, state and federal health officials have been investigating a spate of severe lung illnesses across the nation that they say are tied to e-cigarettes. So far, at least 450 potential cases of the illness have been identified in 33 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Symptoms of the mystery illness include shortness of breath, chest pain, cough, fatigue and possibly fever, according to Colorado’s health department.

On Friday, officials reported new deaths related to the illness in Indiana, Minnesota and California. As the national death toll climbed from two to five, health officials once again warned the public about the dangers of vaping, encouraging people to stop using the devices until they determine the cause of the illness.

While an investigation by the CDC has found similarities in the cases, a single product or substance has not been identified as a cause.

Many patients reported vaping THC products. Others used both THC and nicotine products, while a number used only nicotine products, according to a news release from the CDC.

There has been some focus on an oil derived from vitamin E that was found in cannabis products used by patients. Experts have said that while the oil is used as a nutritional supplement and as skin treatments, it could be dangerous when inhaled.

But federal health organizations warned that they still haven’t identified a single substance as a cause for all the cases.

“Our laboratory is working closely with our federal and state partners to identify the products or substances that may be causing the illnesses and have received more than 120 samples from the states so far,” said Dr. Ned Sharpless, acting commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in a prepared statement.

“The FDA is analyzing these for a broad range of chemicals, but no one substance, including Vitamin E acetate, has been identified in all of the samples tested,” he said.

State health officials said last week that there could be more cases in Colorado that were misdiagnosed in the past.

Colorado has among the highest teen-vaping rates in the nation, with 27% of youths reporting they used e-cigarette products, according to a 2017 state survey.

“These devices are marketed to our children,” Johnson said in her Facebook post. “They are designed to look like USB flash drives or regular pens. Some even look like Apple Watches. Tiny little pods you can pop on, carts that contain THC, cute little refill bottles of gummy bear or blue raspberry liquid.”

State officials have advocated for more regulation of vaping devices, while local governments have already taken steps to restrict access, such as Aspen’s ban on the sale of all flavored nicotine products.