Was the vaping disease EVALI really the beginning of covid?
Do you remember EVALI? The vaping lung disease? Was it really the beginning of covid?
Back in the fall of 2019, the nightly news had “breaking news” of a “new lung disease” that was “landing teenagers in the ICU with respiratory failure”. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2772562
Scared the hell out of a lot of parents. There seemed to be no connection to why, their kids were suddenly sick and developed difficulty breathing, and some ended up on a ventilator. What we know: October 2019, kids were getting sick with a “flu-like illness” that rapidly progressed to severe illness in the lungs. It became an epidemic in places like Salt Lake City, Utah where 31 teenagers were admitted to the hospital for acute respiratory failure, 8 were in the ICU. All survived. The CDC determined that all the teens with EVALI were vaping, hence the name E-Vaping Associated Lung Injury/Infection (EVALI).
Here is what makes this outbreak of EVALI interesting. Was it EVALI or was it covid? Because, remember, we did not know covid “existed” yet. But covid was already circulating, and highly likely to be circulating here in the states for a few months before we knew it.
Hypothesis?
Why did vaping suddenly cause lung infections in teens? The story we were given was it was due to THC vape cartridges that had Vitamin E Acetate in them. Imported from China. But, we were also told that “it was occurring in regular flavored vape nicotine liquids”. Hmm.
Here is where that determination loses me. As much as I hate that it happen, teens have been vaping for a long time. Years. Flavored nicotine cartridges. Juul pens. At school, in their bedrooms, parents don’t even know they are doing it. They can readily source them on instagram and TicTok. At young ages. Flavored nicotine liquid has been on the market for 8+ years prior to the EVALI epidemic. So that reasoning does not resonate as very likely. Furthermore, Teens AND adults were vaping THC products and dabbing wax THC for years prior to EVALI. Why did it suddenly cause this issue in the fall of 2019? The same time covid started circulating? Was it EVALI? Or was it covid? Was CORRELATION and CAUSATION attributing the lung injury to something it was not? Did we blame a potential product IN the liquid THC/Nicotine cartridges for a lung illness when it *may* have been covid? Remember the early days when the wuhan strain started and they said “vapers may be at higher risk for lung issues with covid?” Was that because of what happened with EVALI? Was EVALI covid? Was EVALI sold as a propaganda technique by the government and tobacco industry to shut down the billion dollar vaping industry as they are competition? They do not bring in the tax dollars that big tobacco does. Interestingly enough, EVALI disappeared when covid arrived in spring 2020. It suddenly hit, then mere months later it was just gone. That is weird. Because if those cartridges were truly the ONLY cause, I guarantee those had not been completely removed from the market. Most were imported from China. So was EVALI being diagnosed as covid after February 2020? Or was what was called covid actually EVALI?
In another article discussing EVALI, it was determined that it had nothing to do with nicotine liquid at all, it was a “localized contaminant in something NOT nicotine liquid that appeared on scene and disappeared nearly as fast as it arrived”. https://www.qeios.com/read/ZGVHM7.3. So what was the “contaminant”? They alleged it was the Vitamin E acetate cutting agent in the THC cartridges. Has anyone hypothesized that it was possible that covid itself may have been in those cartridges? They were not intended to be used by teenagers. They were supposed to be used by adults. I know, I know, smells “conspiracy theory-ish” there, but in this forum we put it all on the table when holding the line.
*insert CDC photo
Interesting diagnostics by the CDC…..it could be called EVALI if a flu test was negative and a patient was discovered to have engaged in the act of vaping ANYTIME in the last 90 days? Highly unlikely that if someone vaped 90 days ago they would present with respiratory distress 90 days later. 🧐
THENNNNNN we have this. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0736467920313548
What is that you say? A “vaping lung illness” during the COVID multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS) outbreak? The symptoms of EVALI overlap with the same symptoms of COVID and MIS? The case presented here is quite interesting:
Case 1
A healthy 19-year-old woman presented to the pediatric emergency department (PED) reporting 1 week of abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea, fever. She had been taking Bactrim for 3 days after an urgent care visit for a presumed urinary tract infection. She denied painful urination, cough, shortness of breath, rash, sore throat, or ear pain. Her boyfriend tested positive for COVID-19 approximately 2 weeks prior. Her physical examination revealed fever, tachycardia, tachypnea, and diffuse abdominal tenderness, worse in both upper quadrants. A workup for MIS-C was initiated. Her laboratory results were significant for ketones in her urine, elevated white blood cell count (WBC), and neutrophilia. Inflammatory markers (C-reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate), D-dimer, and fibrinogen were elevated. COVID-19 PCR negative. An abdominal sonogram was unremarkable. The decision was made to admit her for further evaluation and intravenous fluid hydration. On admission, a history of vaping (THC) was elicited. On the first night of admission, the patient had an episode of shortness of breath with transient oxygen desaturation to 92% after a vomiting episode. A chest x-ray (CXR) study revealed a mild left perihilar opacity. Given her vaping history, a chest computed tomography (CT) scan was performed, which showed bilateral ground-glass opacities, with consolidation in the left lower lobe (Figure 1). The patient was started on methylprednisolone, ceftriaxone, and azithromycin. The patient was discharged 3 days after admission.
So let me pose this: would she have tested positive for covid at that point? Probably not. IF she had covid from her boyfriend, it had been 2 weeks, and her covid test would have more likely been negative versus positive at that point. Do her symptoms match covid? YES! Especially a later stage covid case. You don’t present with the above symptoms in early stages of covid.
So to wrap this up: if you believe EVALI is a different illness than covid, you have to believe that despite a decade of vaping, this illness suddenly just popped up in late 2019. You also have to believe that only teens and young adults vaped THC cartridges and never adults, as it only affected young adults and teens. Adults did not get sick with EVALI. You also have to believe that EVALI suddenly disappeared when covid became mainstream in spring 2020. So it suddenly appeared in fall 2019, and suddenly went away in spring 2020. That is a lot of stretching the mind to make EVALI not covid.