CDC ' s Failure to Demand Urine THC Testing of All Outbreak Patients is Inexcusable and is Putting the Entire Nation at Risk

The CDC has irresponsibly botched its entire investigation of vaping-associated respiratory illness (VARI) by failing to recommend or demand that clinicians perform a urine THC drug test on every case patient, and this is putting the entire nation at risk while leading to terrible public policies that are causing immediate harm to thousands of people.The CDC continues to insist that we have no idea what is causing this " mystery illness " and that " no single product " has been identified that explains all of the cases. This statement, which violates basic principles of epidemiological outbreak investigations, is the single communication that has confused policy makers and the public and hindered the ability of state health agencies to issue appropriate recommendations to the public to actually curtail this epidemic of life-threatening respiratory failure.Contrary to what the CDC seems to be insisting, this outbreak is not going to be solved by identifying a single product common to every patient. Like all outbreak investigations, it is going to be solved by identifying a type of product that is common to an overwhelming majority of patients. And frankly, we already have that and it ' s called marijuana. There is just far too high a proportion of case patients who have admitted to using THC or CBD oils for this to be merely a coincidence.Just overnight it wasannounced that a second Oregon patient has died. The reported cause? Vaping of THC oils. Of course, this didn ' t stop ...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs