A US woman whose mother died from vaping is shedding light on just how quickly her health went downhill.
Maggie's mother died from vaping-associated pulmonary injury which was later linked to Vitamin E Acetate in vape juice she consumed.
In 2019 in the United States, the vitamin additive was introduced to some cannabis vapes. But after an outbreak in vaping-related lung injuries, medical experts pinpointed the vitamin as the likely cause.
At least 68 people died in the outbreak, including Maggie's mum. Maggie spoke with Newshub's Patrick Gower in his latest documentary Paddy Gower on Vaping.
She said her mother was always a heavy smoker but switched to vaping when Maggie was a teenager, thinking it was a healthier alternative.
"Throughout my whole childhood, she was a smoker. I was probably in my early teens, like 12 or 13 when she started using the pen and I know my dad looked down on it. I mean, as a doctor, he was against smoking in any form," Maggie told Patrick Gower.
In 2019 her mum's health quickly took a turn. She developed a persistent cough and a few months later was hospitalised with pneumonia. Within days of being hospitalised, she was dead.
"She came out to visit me and had this just awful persistent cough. She told me that she had been feeling a little under the weather for a couple of months," Maggie said.
"At that point, I had kind of gotten used to my dad nagging her about vaping. So I told her, 'You know, it's probably because you vape so much'. It was not long after that when she told me she was hospitalised.
"She said she had just had pneumonia. At that point, the vaping disease had just begun to hit the news. So I kind of told her half-naggingly, 'I hope you don't have that vaping disease'. Then two days later, she died."
Maggie said initially, no one believed vaping could kill someone so quickly, but as more cases emerged health experts started looking into it.
Eventually, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) identified Vitamin E Acetate as the likely cause of the outbreak.
"Even when we were trying to get her case investigated, people seemed very sceptical that vaping could kill somebody that quickly. What we didn't know at the time was the vitamin E acetate that she'd been inhaling," Maggie said.
Watch the full documentary Paddy Gower on Vaping on ThreeNow.
