By David Downs, Leafly.
On Jan. 12, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) posted some good news about vaping-associated pulmonary injury (VAPI).
After 2,700 injured and 60 dead since August 2019, it appears the tainted THC vape cart nightmare of 2019 has concluded.
By mid-January, hospitals in the US reported zero new VAPI deaths in the prior seven days. New injuries were down to just four.
But going forward, weekly injury reports aren’t likely to drop to zero again.
Is [vaping] ever going to be zero risk? Nothing is. But it can be much safer. You need proper regulations and oversight, and that’s become obvious now.
– JOSH WURZER, Co-Founder and President, SC Labs
That’s because VAPI-like injuries started before 2019, experts say. Vitamin E oil—the cause of nearly all VAPI injuries and deaths in 2019—hit the illicit market for THC vape cartridges in late 2018. But reports of defective batteries and tainted cartridges go back more than a decade.
A medical literature review by Leafly finds…