Nearly 150 people in 15 states -- including nine in New Jersey and four in Pennsylvania -- have developed “severe lung illnesses” associated with e-cigarette use, federal health officials said Wednesday.
In many cases, patients acknowledged recent use of e-cigarette or vape products containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) -- the component of marijuana that gives users a high, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Whatever those patients were using, it is not the same as closely regulated THC vaping products sold by prescription through Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana program, the state Department of Health said Thursday.
None of the four cases currently being investigated in western Pennsylvania are tied to the state’s medical marijuana program, department spokesman Nate Wardle told lehighvalleylive.com.
The New Jersey Department of Health couldn’t immediately say if anyone in the Garden State’s medical marijuana program was among its nine cases because the investigation is ongoing and the department has yet to determine what products were involved, according to the office of communications.
The CDC on Thursday afternoon deferred to state health officials on the question of whether the total number of cases nationwide involved anyone using products from a state-sanctioned medical marijuana program.
What Pennsylvania’s dispensaries provide is “a medical product to help the patient,” Wardle said. It’s not something to potentially harm someone, he added.
Sample packages of medical cannabis products are displayed Feb. 26, 2019, inside Mission medical marijuana dispensary in the Emmaus Avenue Plaza at 2733 W. Emmaus Ave. in Allentown.
It’s an “approved delivery system,” a department spokeswoman added, not a “recreational” product. There is top-level quality control, with proper testing and labeling of the cartridges, she said. It’s not an “apples to apples comparison” to whatever is making people sick, she said.
State health officials in Pennsylvania and New Jersey as well as the CDC have raised overall concerns about vaping, especially among teens. Vaping can lead to the narrowing of blood vessels, Wardle said.
And quality control can be an issue.
“E-cigarettes can contain other harmful substances besides nicotine,” the New Jersey Department of Health said in a news release.
There is danger in buying vaping devices from mom-and-pop stores, Wardle said.
When sold by large companies, mostly with ties to tobacco companies, vaping products are regulated by the federal government, but if cartridges come “off the street” they could include “almost anything,” including “formaldehyde and heavy metals,” Wardle said.
“There’s no way of knowing what’s inside of it,” Wardle said.
Gregory Conley, president of the nonprofit American Vaping Association, an advocate for vaping products, told NJ Advance Media earlier this week that the medical issues being reported can be tracked to “amateur-made street vapes containing THC of other drugs ... not nicotine vaping products.”
The CDC has yet to reach that conclusion, according to a Wednesday news release.
The 149 cases in the 15 states “are similar and appear to be linked to e-cigarette product use, (but) more information is needed to determine what is causing the illnesses,” the CDC said. The age profile of the New Jersey patients is between 17 and 35 with “no significant past medical history,” according to state health officials. In Pennsylvania, an age breakdown wasn’t immediately available in the four cases under investigation, Wardle said.
All the cases in the 16 states are linked to vaping, the CDC said. It is working with the federal Food and Drug Administration as well as the state health officials to gather information on the products used.
No one has died, the CDC said.
While “severe lung illness” is the eventual outcome, many cases began with shortness of breath or chest pain, but others featured mild to moderate gastrointestinal illness including vomiting and diarrhea as well as fatigue, the CDC said.
In many cases, patients reported using products that contained THC, but “no specific product has been identified in all cases, nor has any product been conclusively linked to illnesses,” the CDC said.
It is not yet clear if there is a common cause or “if they are different diseases with similar presentations,” the CDC said.
The report was updated after the CDC revised its count on cases and states.
Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.