14 People Have Been Hospitalized From Vaping—Here’s Why E-Cigarettes Are So Dangerous

Author: Christina Oehler

Some cases are so severe, the patients are unable to breathe on their own. 

Fourteen people in Wisconsin and Illinois have been hospitalized over the past month result of vaping. Officials from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (WDHS) announced on Friday that 11 teenagers and young adults have been diagnosed with lung disease as the result of using e-cigarettes—up from the eight cases reported in July—and that there are another seven cases currently under investigation. ​

In Illinois, three young adults have also been hospitalized for vaping-related lung damage, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH).
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According to the press release from the WDHS, the admitted patients experienced symptoms like shortness of breath, fatigue, chest pain, cough, nausea, and weight loss. The department said that while the severity varied among patients, some cases were so bad that they require breathing assistance. One patient, a Burlington, Wisconsin man in his mid-20s, was even put in a medically-induced coma as a result of lung damage from vaping, according to Fox 6 Now, a Wisconsin-based news channel. (It's believed, however, that specific incident may have been caused by a vape cartridge containing THC—the main psychoactive compound in marijuana; a trend that hasn't been seen in the other Wisconsin and Illinois cases). 

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