Last week I shared my objections to the American Lung Association’s specious screed on vaping, noting, among other concerns, a non sequitur about popcorn lung from the ALA chief medical officer: “Dr. Rizzo offers an entire paragraph devoted to a disease that has never been diagnosed in a vaper. The definitive article on [popcorn lung] is by Clive Bates (here).”
In a subsequent comment on X, Jukka Kelovuori observed that the “@Clive_Bates article is about ‘EVALI,’ not ‘popcorn lung.’”
I stand corrected, sort of.
A search of the medical literature for articles about “bronchiolitis obliterans” (i.e., popcorn lung) and e-cigarettes yields the following results:
In summary, there is just one publication, a 2019 article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, “Life-threatening bronchiolitis related to electronic cigarette use in a Canadian youth.”
The title references only “bronchiolitis,” not “bronchiolitis obliterans.” This is important, because, despite the authors alluding to popcorn lung, the only diagnosis they could make in this case report was the former. The subject was a 17-year-old male who had vaped flavored e-cigarettes “bought through an online Canadian retailer,” but the authors also reported that he “inhaled marijuana via a bong” and “regularly added THC to his vaping fluid.”
Thus, there still hasn’t been a confirmed case of popcorn lung caused by vaping e-cigarettes. In fact, one of the article’s commenters correctly noted that cigarette smoke contains far more of the toxic compounds that cause popcorn lung, and still, the condition has never been seen in smokers.
The definitive article on the subject is still by Clive Bates (here).
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