There is something about public safety hysteria which is both fascinating and incredibly dangerous in it's own right. So powerful it has caused parents to cut their babies genitals open and others to poison themselves to death and even over-using disinfectants to a point of 'abuse' and super-germ factories in households around the world.
This is an example of something that will spread like a wildfire in August as the rumour travels "I heard you can die from these.. a guy died when his lungs filled with oil!".
Here is the thing - Doctors are not 'wrong' to ask for investigation here. It is nearly a 'legal obligation' and part of a sort of 'scientific method' in action. They do have to inquire even if they know the probability is very very low. They have to mention it and subject the 'question mark' to standards.
OK.
Maybe what concerns me far more is that the media, knowing the public at large is so very vulnerable to 'mass hysteria' does nothing but exploit that weakness of ours. Rather than deal with this in some relatively proportionate amount of attention (nearly zero compared to 1000 other similar situations) they will FIRE THE SECOND COMING HEADLINES or at the least try and see if they can push it into a 'hysteria' sequence. See if it grabs.
That the man was a lifelong smoker before switching to
vaping for just a short time is reason enough for a reporter to nearly not bother covering this yet.
That early investigation shows that nobody uses oils is another reason to just plain hold off.
and,
IF we did find out the man had been mixing his own liquids with oil (on purpose or by mistake) then the story does not become 'E-Cigs'.
It is not a case where 'E-Juice' did something. It is another (out of thousands) of cases where someone mistakenly poisoned themselves.
In the same way many a home brewery has seen victims mistakenly ingest poisons. In the same way thousands eat Salmonella from poorly preserved chicken. In the same way thousands mistakenly take the wrong pills in wrong dosages and kill themselves.
Anyway, I do feel terrible for the man and of course we want to make sure someone isn't getting some kind of bad product or making mistakes at home.
My main problem here is that this does not warrant 'alarms' yet and is likely to CAUSE HARM by way of dissuading the general public and consequently making it more difficult for the 99.999% of smokers who will only get HEALTHIER LUNGS from
vaping.
(I bet its 100% but EVEN IF 1 in a million has difficulty its still far less than nearly 100% of smokers having difficulty).
Anyways.. good find and thanks for posting!