From our media partners at WOOD TV:
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — With vaping a popular alternative to cigarettes, West Michigan hospitals say they are seeing an increase in people checking in for vaping-related lung issues.
“We have had cases we’ve had to put on life support to give the lungs time to heal so that we could remove the life support and get them back on track,” Dr. Shelley Schmidt, a pulmonary critical care specialist with Spectrum Health.
In extreme cases, she said, patients have left the hospital with breathing machines.
Vaping is often advertised as a way to quit smoking or a healthier alternative to traditional cigarettes, but doctors tell say that “healthier” is relative.
“The bar was set exceedingly low, so if you have hundreds of cancer-causing chemicals that we know in a cigarette, if you have several cancer-causing chemicals, that is fewer of them, but that does not make them safer, per se,” Schmidt said.
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