Ep. 30: The chemical culprit in 2019's mysterious vaping illnesses—what we still don't know

Stereo Chemistry · May 27, 2020 · 29m

Months before the novel coronavirus took hold of the globe in late 2019, clusters of patients began appearing in emergency rooms throughout the US with a mysterious lung disease. Investigators quickly linked the illnesses not to a pathogen, but to patients' use of vaping products. By examining the chemicals in these products, they eventually found a chief suspect: vitamin E acetate. The compound was being used as a cutting agent in some counterfeit or illicit cannabis-based vaping products. Still, many questions remain about how vitamin E acetate could have caused those injuries and whether…