News Headline Shows How Misinformation About Respiratory Disease Outbreak is Spreading

The featured headline of a newsarticle published yesterday atNorthJersey.com (theNorth Jersey Record) was: " Vaping with JUUL Damaged NJ Woman ' s Lungs, Left Her Hospitalized. "The headline of the article itself read: " ' My Lungs Were Chemically Burned ' : NJ Victim Speaks Out Against Vaping. "These headlines certainly give the impression that this unfortunate 21-year-old woman developed acute respiratory failure due to her use of JUUL.If true, this would be an absolute disaster because there are an estimated 7 million JUUL users.This is no doubt going to contribute to the public ' s belief that electronic cigarettes sold at retail stores, not tainted THC vape carts sold mostly on the black market, are responsible for the terrible respiratory disease outbreak that has now affected nearly 1,300 people and caused 26 deaths.The first paragraph of the story reinforces the impression that JUUL was the cause of this woman ' s respiratory failure: " [She] started smoking cigarettes when she was 17 or 18, she said. Hoping to find a “safer alternative” — one that wouldn’t leave a smell — she picked up a Juul, a popular electronic cigarette device, and began vaping. "The Rest of the StoryIt isn ' t until you get to the fine print that you found out the following:" [She] began using vaping devices more and more, eventually taking hits almost every 10 minutes, she said. She first had other people purchase her vapes, and she began buying them from stores andunregulated dealers...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs