- Alarming Hospitalizations: Vaping Sends Elementary School Children to Hospitals
- Tragic Loss: Mother Believes Vaping Led to Daughter’s Untimely Death
- Battling Youth Vaping: Government Crackdown and Calls for Stricter Enforcement
In the twelve months leading up to April, 15 minors under the age of nine required hospitalization.
Vaping is making children of elementary school age so unwell that they are being hospitalized.
In the year ending in April, NHS England reported 15 admissions of minors aged nine or younger, compared to 12 last year and two the year before that.
Vaping has been the key for many smokers to quit the leading preventable cause of mortality.
But Rachel Howe is persuaded that it was the cause of Rosey Christoffersen’s death in February 2015, six months after she began vaping heavily.
She stated, “She was supposed to call me at 5.30 pm, but she did not.”
“When I dialed her number, a member of the ambulance crew responded and informed me that they were currently assisting her daughter. She had just left work and collapsed.
Rosey had sustained a heart attack, but the cause was a bilateral pneumothorax, the sudden collapse of both lungs.
Her brain was oxygen-deprived, and it became evident two days later that she would not survive.
Rachel from Wirral was informed that Rosey’s lungs were “a mass of holes and blisters known as blebs.”
She stated, “There was a great deal of stunned silence at the hospital.”
Rosey visited the doctor multiple times with chest discomfort in the months preceding her death, but as a fit and active football player, it was attributed to a pulled muscle.
Rachel stated, “I was discovering countless bottles of empty liquid.”
“She had it continually in her mouth. And I kept telling her, “You wouldn’t smoke that much if you did, so why are you vaping so much?”
No autopsy was performed, and no official link was established, but physicians told Rachel that vaping was “probably” to blame.
Professor Bush goes on to say that he has never witnessed a youthful, healthy individual with two collapsed lungs.
“I believe his mother is correct,” he stated.
“I cannot think of any other explanation that would adequately cover the facts.”
It is illegal to sell vapes to minors, and the packaging is plainly labeled.
However, it is understandable why some products would appeal to youth.
They are brightly colored, flavored like fruit or candy, and inexpensive at approximately £5 per disposable vaporizer.
Some appear like make-up, others like pens.
The government recently announced that it will crack down on companies that illegally target adolescents with advertising on platforms such as TikTok.
“Illicit vape enforcement squads” are also being established for £3 million to identify the vendors selling to minors.
In the previous year, vaping led to the hospitalization of forty adolescents and young adults ages 12 to 19.
However, according to John Dunne of the UK Vaping Industry Association, “the statistics would not exist if children did not have access to e-cigarettes.”
According to the NHS, approximately 76,000 people die annually from smoking, whereas there has been no officially confirmed report of a vaping-related death even though the category has been available in the UK for approximately 15 years,” he said.
“The fundamental issue that requires immediate attention is the pathetic level of enforcement of vaporizer age regulations throughout the United Kingdom.
“Although we view recent government measures as a step in the right direction to combat youth vaping, much more must be done to support Trading Standards in their efforts to combat rogue traders and cut off the supply of vapes to minors.”
He desires the implementation of instant fines of £10,000 for those discovered selling to minors.
A few days after succumbing, Rosey was scheduled to begin an apprenticeship as a hairdresser.
Instead, she was kept alive that day so that her organs could be donated, thereby benefiting eight other people.
Rachel desires more research on the effects of vaporizers on young people.
She has made it her mission to share her daughter’s tale with any young people she observes vaping or who request e-cigarettes at the store where she works.
The effects on young lungs are just beginning to emerge. But she knows the stakes are too high to disregard the hazards.
