Anaheim Hills Teen Injured by Exploding E-Cig

By Kelly Goff and Gadi Schwartz

An Anaheim teen was hospitalized Tuesday after an electronic cigarette exploded.

His hand was badly burned in the explosion, which his girlfriend described as sounding like a gun going off. He was back at home recovering Tuesday night.

The teen is the second person reportedly injured by one of the devices in Southern California in as many days. 

"At the time that this explosion occurred he was holding some type of e-cigarette device what precipitated this device to fail or this type of explosion we don't know, Ahaheim Police Department's Lt. Bob Dunn said,  "it was called in as a possible explosion so certainly people heard it."

A San Diego man was rushed to the burn unit after his e-cig exploded inside a liquor store in Ramona, also shattering glass.

CalFire officials told NBC San Diego that they did not know what caused that explosion, but that it was not the first time a user had been injured by one of the devices.

Lt. Dunn said detectives and arson investigators will be looking into the two separate cases to see if there could be something triggering the devices to malfunction. 

"We will look to see in the upcoming days if there are more situations or incidents like this or if perhaps manufactures reach out and indicate that there have been a series of these kinds of failures," Lt. Dunn said.

E-cigarettes heat liquid nicotine into an inhalable vapor.

Two weeks ago, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a warning urging airlines to bar users from carrying the devices in checked luggage because they are believed to be behind incidents were fires were sparked in the baggage hold of aircraft.

The FAA pointed to after-market parts as part of the concern.

Michael Larkin and NBC San Diego’s Liberty Zabala and R. Stickney contributed to this story.

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States racing to regulate e-cigarettes

Liz Szabo, USA TODAY, February 7, 2015

The American Cancer Society has found itself in a surprising position: opposing state proposals to make it illegal to sell e-cigarettes to minors.

The cancer society doesn't want kids to use e-cigarettes, but it objects to what it calls "Trojan horse" legislation – bills that appear good for public health but that could addict more people to nicotine and roll back progress against clean air-- says Cathy Callaway of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. Several health groups have campaigned against e-cigarette bills around the country because of concerns about their health effects and potential to make smoking seem normal again.

Forty-one states have banned the sale of e-cigarettes, also known as "vapor products," to people under 18, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

But 17 of those state laws use language that could make it harder to regulate e-cigarettes like tobacco – imposing hefty taxes and including them in smoke-free laws – says Erika Sward of the American Lung Association, which also has been fighting the bills.

Kids have have many ways to get cigarettes, research shows, and there are more effective ways of keeping cigarettes away from teens than just prohibiting sales, Sward says.

Raising taxes – something specifically forbidden by a new Missouri law – does far more to cut youth smoking by making cigarettes too expensive for teens with limited incomes, Sward says.

About 40% of the price of a pack of cigarettes comes from tax, says Bonnie Herzog, an e-cigarette industry analyst with Wells Fargo Securities. Today, using e-cigarettes costs about the same as conventional cigarettes.

By lobbying for ineffective regulations and working to block stronger ones, the e-cigarette industry is "trotting out Big Tobacco's playbook from decades past," Sward says. "They're trying to protect themselves from these policies so their products remain cheap and accessible to kids."

Five states have passed laws that forbid cities approving stricter ordinances, according to a January report in the medical journal Tobacco Control.

That could stifle community action around e-cigarettes, says Mark Pertschuk, director of Grassroots Change, a network of public health movements. He notes that most clean-air laws began as local ordinances before gaining enough traction to be passed statewide.

"It should always raise red flags when people who are trying to addict you to their product come up with what appears to be a good public health measure," says Iowa state Sen. Joe Bolkcom, a Democrat. He opposed an industry-backed e-cigarette law that passed last year because it didn't include taxes or restrictions on where people can use the products.

"We're in the process of making the same mistakes that we made with tobacco," Bolkcom says. "We're going to see a whole generation of people addicted to these products."

Lawmakers in 26 states are considering e-cigarette bills in the current legislative session, Callaway says. Several would limit local action. Some impose additional regulations such as requiring childproof packaging.

An e-cigarette, also known as a vape pen, uses a battery to heat liquid nicotine into a vapor that can be inhaled. It doesn't produce smoke. Some of the liquids include flavors such as bubble gum and "Frooty Loops." Some are nicotine-free. Early versions looked like cigarettes, but newer products come in different shapes and sizes.

With hundreds of brands for sale, the popularity of e-cigarettes is racing ahead of efforts to regulate them, Sward says.

The Food and Drug Administration has proposed regulations for e-cigarettes, including a prohibition against selling them to minors, but the agency has not yet finalized the rule.

This month, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, vetoed a bill banning e-cigarette sales to minors because it would not have regulated them as tobacco products.

Too soon for a "sin tax?"

Many lawmakers say they're trying to strike a balance, protecting kids without crushing a fledgling industry.

Michigan state Sen. Rick Jones, a Republican, says only adults should be able to use e-cigarettes. He says they are no different than nicotine patches or gum and should be taxed the same way, with a sales tax. "They are simply a nicotine delivery device," says Jones, who was disappointed that Snyder vetoed Michigan's bill. "They are not tobacco cigarettes. I cannot support taxing them that way."

Ohio state Rep. Stephanie Kunze, a Republican, says she can't see imposing a "sin tax" on e-cigarettes before science has shown whether they're harmful.

Minnesota is now the only state to tax e-cigarettes. A tax in North Carolina is scheduled to take effect in July.

Some lawmakers say they felt pressure to compromise so they could quickly ban e-cigarette sales to minors.

Last year, for the first time, more teens used e-cigarettes than conventional cigarettes. About 17% of high school seniors used e-cigarettes, while 14% used conventional cigarettes, according to the University of Michigan's long-running Monitoring the Future study.

Kunze says she voted for Ohio's ban on selling e-cigarettes to minors because of concern for children like her two teenage daughters.

"My No. 1 concern was to make them illegal for purchase by kids as fast as we could," Kunze says. "These things look like Sephora eyeliner and they taste like Dr. Pepper."

Iowa state Sen. Herman Quirmbach, a Democrat, sponsored his state's law banning e-cigarette sales to minors last year. While he says he knew including e-cigarettes in the state's ban on smoking indoors wouldn't pass, he felt it was important to take immediate action to protect kids, with the hope that lawmakers can revisit the issue.

The e-cigarette industry has been swift to shape how vapor products are regulated.

Reynolds American, which owns both R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co., believes that taxing e-cigarettes like regular cigarettes would "place hurdles that would discourage cigarette smokers from considering switching" to e-cigarettes," spokesman Richard Smith says.

Altria Group, formerly called Philip Morris, sells several e-cigarette brands through a company called Nu Mark.

"We've been pretty active at the state level in working with legislators on minimum-age-of-purchase laws," Altria spokesman David Sutton says. "We've been working with legislators to make sure that vapor products are only available to adults."

But banning e-cigarette sales to kids only makes teens want them more, says Stanton Glantz, a professor of tobacco control at the University of California-San Francisco. Tobacco industry documents show that cigarette companies have cast smoking as an adult activity in order to appeal to kids, he says. Documents from cigarette maker Brown & Williamson in 1975, which were subpoenaed by the Federal Trade Commission, suggest targeting teens by presenting cigarettes "as one of the few initiations into the adult world" and as an "illicit pleasure."

Tobacco companies have a lot riding on vapor.

Sales of e-cigarettes could reach $3.5 billion this year, Herzog says.

While that market is modest compared with the $85 billion in sales from conventional cigarettes, Herzog predicts that e-cigarette sales will surpass those of what she calls "combustible tobacco" within a decade, Tobacco companies are likely to dominate the e-cigarette market, Herzog says, because of their financial strength and longstanding relationships with retailers.

Risks, benefits debated

Public health experts disagree about the risks and benefits of e-cigarettes.

The California Department of Public Health issued a warning last month urging people to avoid e-cigarettes because of their health risks.

The American Cancer Society has expressed concerns about the safety of e-cigarettes in light of a new study, published in January in The New England Journal of Medicine, that found e-cigarettes produce high levels of formaldehyde, which causes cancer.

Nicotine can be especially harmful to children and pregnant women, says Brian King of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

harmless water vapor," King says. "Clean air should be the standard, whether that's air free from secondhand smoke or the aerosol from an e-cigarette product."

Other public health advocates say e-cigarettes have the potential to help smokers quit. Although there is no long-term data to show their effectiveness, e-cigarettes seem to work at least as well as other nicotine replacement products such as patches and gum, says Thomas Glynn, a consulting professor in cancer prevention at Stanford University.

"The scientific evidence is still pretty sparse," Glynn says. "There are so many kinds of e-cigs, it's difficult to make any kind of statement about them." Still, he says, "Some people – although probably not the revolutionary number that the e-cig enthusiasts predict – will stop smoking because of them."

A December review by The Cochrane Collaborative, an independent organization that analyzes health research, found evidence from two studies that e-cigarettes can help smokers quit for at least six months, but it described the quality of the evidence as low because it was based on only two clinical trials.

To Glynn, it would be a shame to tax or regulate e-cigarettes out of existence if they have the potential to help people quit smoking. While nicotine is harmful, it's less dangerous than conventional tobacco, which kills more than 480,000 Americans a year.

He says, "We should be focusing all of our efforts on helping the nation's 42 million cigarette smokers, and youth who may start using cigarettes, to stop or not start at all."

Pertschuk, the former president of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, says states don't need to wait for more evidence to regulate e-cigarettes like tobacco.

"When we started really fighting the tobacco industry on smoke-free air in the mid-1980s, it was an incredibly hard fight. I believe we had less evidence about secondhand smoke then than we do today about e-cigs," Pertschuk says. "One of the things the tobacco industry did 30 years ago was confuse the science. They found out that confusion was more effective than outright denial."

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California declares e-cigarettes, 'vaping' a health threat; e-cig makers disagree

Jan. 28, 2015 

By FENIT NIRAPPIL / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SACRAMENTO — California health officials on Wednesday declared electronic cigarettes a health threat that should be strictly regulated like tobacco products, joining other states and health advocates across the U.S. in seeking tighter controls as “vaping” grows in popularity.

The California Department of Public Health report says e-cigarettes emit cancer-causing chemicals and get users hooked on nicotine but acknowledges that more research needs to be done to determine the immediate and long-term health effects.

New generations of young people will become nicotine addicts if the products remain largely unregulated, California Health Officer Ron Chapman said. Last year, 17 percent of high school seniors reported using e-cigarettes, known as vaping, according to the report.

“Without action, it is likely that California’s more than two decades of progress to prevent and reduce traditional tobacco use will erode as e-cigarettes re-normalize smoking behavior,” the report says.

E-cigarettes heat liquid nicotine from cartridges into inhalable vapor without the tar and other chemicals found in traditional cigarettes. Unlike smokers, people who use e-cigarettes can adjust their nicotine levels and use the same cartridge for an extended period of time.

The California report says e-cigarettes emit as many as 10 toxic chemicals, but advocates say there is no evidence those substances are released at dangerous levels.

“Despite the health officer’s false claims, there is ample evidence that vaping helps smokers quit and is far less hazardous than smoking,” Gregory Conley, president of the e-cigarette advocacy group American Vaping Association, said in an email. “Smokers deserve truthful and accurate information about the relative risks of different nicotine products, not hype and conjecture based on cherry-picked reports.”

Health officials called for restrictions on the marketing and sale of e-cigarettes, protections against accidental ingestion of liquid nicotine and an education campaign on the dangers of using e-cigarettes. California banned the sale of e-cigarettes to minors in 2010.

A state senator introduced legislation this week that would regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products and ban their use in public places such as hospitals, bars and schools. A similar bill was defeated last year over opposition from tobacco companies.

E-cigarettes have become more visible as they grow in popularity and commercials for the products air in places where traditional cigarette ads have been banned. Businesses related to e-cigarettes, including vaping lounges, are rapidly popping up in cities across California.

Geoff Braithwaite, co-owner of an Oakland store that sells liquid nicotine for e-cigarettes, said he understands the need to restrict vaping in public and prevent sales to minors. He says his customers are longtime smokers who should be able to get a nicotine buzz without the harshness of a regular cigarette.

“Nicotine has all this stigma attached solely to the medium we used to use,” Braithwaite said. “When you try to outright ban e-cigarettes, you’re lumping in the solution with the problem.”

Other states, including Oklahoma, Tennessee and Arkansas, already have issued advisories cautioning the use of e-cigarettes.

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Are E-Cigarettes Heroes Or Harmful? A Look At The Science

Written By: Jenna Birch

The surgeon general has asked for “clarity” on controversial e-cigarettes. Here, top experts give some.

“Vape” is the Oxford English Dictionary’s reigning Word of the Year, and so far, electronic cigarettes are proving themselves one of the buzziest, most divisive health topics of 2015.

We know tobacco kills, and e-cigarettes, at least, seem to help people quit.

Research has indicated that e-cigarettes help people slow their tobacco consumption, an October 2014 study showed that six months of vaping led 21 percent of participants to quit traditional cigarettes, with an additional 23 percent cutting back by half.

And according to a new British survey of 1,800 people, e-cigs are replacing approved aids for quitting tobacco, too. They are now used roughly twice as often as government-regulated nicotine gums, lozenges, and patches across the pond. (Similar data does not yet exist for U.S. consumers.)

Meanwhile, the California Department of Public Health just declared e-cigarettes a public health threat.

The week before last, a study claimed hidden high levels of the carcinogen formaldehyde were found in e-cigs, potentially increasing lifetime cancer risk by 5 to 15 percent.

The American Lung Association has also stated its fear of the “potential health consequences” associated with the use of unregulated e-cigarettes — with almost 500 different brands, 7,700 different flavors and wide-ranging nicotine levels. ‘There is much to be concerned about, especially in the absence of FDA oversight,” the organization said in a statement.

When it comes to e-cigarettes, there are those who argue for the pros and there are those who voice the cons. There are no clear answers, leading new U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy to call for more guidance on e-cigarettes use as an aid for smoking cessation.

“There’ve been theories and ideas around the fact that e-cigarettes may be helpful from a harm-reduction perspective in helping people who are already on cigarettes [and who] have had trouble quitting actually get off cigarettes,” Murthy said on Tuesday, Jan. 27 in Richmond, Va., as part of a cross-country listening tour. “If the data indeed bears that out, then I think we should absolutely embrace that and use e-cigarettes in targeted ways.”

However, don’t mistake Murthy’s words for a wholehearted endorsement. “I’m concerned about e-cigarettes, and I think this is an area where we are in desperate need of clarity,” Murthy said. “I think it’s important for us to understand the impact, particularly on youth, before we allow the full-fledged spread of these e-cigarettes and then later have problems that we have to deal with.”

What are those problems? Let’s take a look at the pros, the cons, and exactly what we do and don’t know.

The Good

As previously mentioned, e-cigarettes aren’t all bad. They do seem to help people who are trying to quit traditional cigarettes curb their tobacco addiction, leading the surgeon general to say we could potentially use these devices in “targeted ways.”

According to a 2013 study of 657 smokers published in theJournal of the American Medical Association, e-cigarettes were as effective as nicotine patches in helping people kick their tobacco habit for at least six months.

According to Charles Powell, MD, chief of pulmonary medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital and a professor of medicine at Mount Sinai Medical School in New York City. “they are essentially a delivery device for nicotine,” he tells Yahoo Health. “Just like gum or patches, they have similar replacement effects, and they’re potentially a more comfortable, attractive way to deliver the substance.”

And there is some larger-scale research advocating for the potential gains of e-cigarette use. According to a paper closely reviewing 41 key studies about the short-term health impact and effectiveness of e-cigs published in the journalTherapeutic Advances in Drug Safety,  “currently available evidence indicates that electronic cigarettes are by far a less harmful alternative to smoking and significant health benefits are expected in smokers who switch from tobacco to electronic cigarettes.”

But after the switch from tobacco to e-cigs, what might happen down the road?

The Risks

While you certainly could wean yourself off these electronic devices, and therefore off nicotine, often e-cigs are a swap and not a means to completely stop smoking (or vaping) altogether. “One could devise a strategy to decrease use — that can be done,” Powell says. “But there’s really no one marketing that approach, or advocating a plan to make it happen.”

And over time, healthcare providers are concerned about what the substances in the vapors might do to the body. “We don’t know if the devices are safe long-term, whether the nicotine amounts are safe, whether the other additives are safe,” says Powell. “And the problem is that most people who use these devices are under the impression that they are totally safe.”

For instance, a study published in the journal Circulationshowed e-cig vapors are high in nanoparticles that can trigger inflammation leading to health conditions throughout the body, from asthma to cardiovascular disease, stroke, and diabetes.

Even in the short term, there isn’t much research on e-cig use — but they may still present health hazards. A new studyfrom PLOS One shows the vapors in e-cigarettes may also leave users vulnerable to viral respiratory infections.

According to Qun Wu, MD, Ph.D, an assistant professor in the department of medicine at National Jewish Health who also worked on the study, this effect was seen whether the liquid contained nicotine or not. “Short exposure to propylene glycol, the primary ingredient in the majority of e-liquid and e-cigarette cartridges, may cause acute upper airway irritation,” she tells Yahoo Health. “E-liquids without nicotine and with nicotine inhibit the lung’s innate immunity, which helps it defend itself against infections.”

Notably, the study also involved the cells of young adolescents, a key group experts are worried about when it comes to the long-term health repercussions of e-cigs.

The Youth Factor

The fact of the matter? Kids are getting hooked on e-cigs, and use is continually on the rise. According to a CDC report late last year, the number of teens using these devices has tripled over the course of two years — a major concern, especially since last year’s surgeon general report pointed out the detrimental effects of nicotine on brain development.

And kids aren’t trading up from the real stuff to a “safer” alternative, says Powell: “There’s good data showing that young kids are beginning to smoke e-cigarettes where they never smoked before.”

Not only that, but this group is most vulnerable to the potential long-term ramifications of vaping — something we don’t know yet, because e-cigs are so new, they are unregulated, and there is no evidence to ensure their safety. “It took decades to see how detrimental the effects of regular smoking were,” Powell says. “We can’t afford to make those mistakes again here.”

On Vaping Pot

There’s also the issue of vaping pot, which we may know even less about. While Powell says regulated use of marijuana for medicinal purposes has its accepted role, there’s little data about the delivery of THC via a pen or similar device. “Even the impact of marijuana cigarette smoking on lung health and cancer risk is an unanswered question that requires further research,” he says. “Oil is frequently used to deliver cannabinoids through pens, and the health effects are unknown. They have not been shown to be safe.”

The little existing research is mixed, but benefits do seem to be there. One study conducted in 2004, for instance, found vaping cannabis may deliver fewer other potentially-damaging compounds when compared with smoking it. However, that said, it’s possible vaping the oil is a shockingly potent way to get high. According to a CNBC report, hash oil can contain up to 80 to 90 percent THC, the main mind-altering chemical from the cannabis plant, versus 15 to 18 percent for traditional pot smoking.

The pot-vaping trend even seemed to worry Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws, which is a nonprofit advocating for the broader legalization of marijuana. “Between the fact that you can potentially pass out with a single inhalation, or you can have such property damage and potential bodily harm just producing it … these [issues of the vape pen] definitely need to be addressed,” he told NPR. “This is a screaming call for regulation if there ever was one.”

This is also a concern, because young people could potentially use this method of delivery to get high in secret, at anytime. Although she has a prescription, the NPR report used 19-year-old Nikki Esquibel as an example. Virtually odorless and colorless, it could allow Esquibel to get “stoned” without anyone knowing: “I use it mostly around my neighborhood,” she said. “It’s easy to hide.” And with vaping picking up among teens, even in classrooms, it’s an issue on some experts’ radar.

Why the Intense Debate?

Check Google. Run a quick search of e-cigarettes. You’ll find a slew of scary studies about vaping, coupled with a ton of advocacy websites for their effectiveness.

Why can’t anyone seem to agree, yea or nay? Well, simply put, there are two sides to every story. For instance, The New York Times ran a counterpoint to all the fear-inducing news surrounding the recent formaldehyde study, noting the issues with the hubbub. First and foremost, e-cigs aren’t vaped at high voltage (because of a nasty taste), which is when those damaging levels of the carcinogen were produced in the study.

After talking to the study author David Peyton, and mentioning a tweet from the New England Journal of Journal of Medicine indicating vaping carried a higher risk that smoking, writer Joe Nocera reports Peyton was shocked. “I regret that,” he told him. “That is not my opinion.” The aim of his study, he said, was simply to highlight there’s so much that we don’t yet know about e-cigs.

Which is true. Medical professionals often cite the lack of research and carcinogens in e-cigs as reason for caution — but e-cig users note that they’ve kicked their tobacco habit by vaping instead. Ultimately, as the surgeon general says, we are in major need of more scientific evidence to fill in the gaps on long-term effectiveness or harm before rendering a final verdict on vaping. And this takes time.

Powell does point out, however, that there are other regulated ways to kick smoking habits that aren’t e-cigs. If you’re a smoker who wants to quit, you may want to consider trying those first.

The Bottom Line

While we can’t snap our fingers and make evidence for or against vaping appear, or get e-cigs FDA-regulated in one big leap, there is one thing we can do: stop the bleed. As Powell says, many marketing campaigns are not aimed at using e-cigs as devices to quit smoking tobacco.

One thing we know for sure is that we have to prevent groups, like teenagers, getting hooked on e-cigarettes that were never tobacco users in the first place. There’s no reason to risk long-term damage —that may be forever.

“The health consequences of lung damage and injury, in particular, tend not to be reversible,” says Powell. “We can treat the symptoms and make things more comfortable — but it’s so hard to turn back time.”

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