THE USE OF ELECTRONIC CIGARETTES AND VAPING DEVICES CAN BE HARMFUL TO HEALTH
[ Daniel Mitchell ] He’s dying. I cried.
[ Alex Mitchell ] I just kind of slept the whole time I was there.
No one really thought anything different.
We just all thought that I just didn’t feel good.
[ Daniel Mitchell ] On the way for the surgery, his lungs failed.
30 seconds would have killed him.
[ Alex Mitchell ] So, I’d gotten stuck with so many needles that day.
[ Monica Mitchell ] There’s a few points that were really the turning points.
[ Daniel Mitchell ] Then, he pulled this out! He ripped them out!
It was such a new medical problem in the United States that
nobody knew, the doctors didn’t know.
“Holy crap! He’s gonna die? Oh no, hey, he’s getting better!”
It was… I would not want my worst enemy to ever go through that. It was…
[ Alex Mitchell ] Oh, man, I’m out of breath.
[ VO ] In 2019, doctors started talking about a new,
widespread disease that caused severe lung damage.
That followed an outbreak of more than 3,000 cases in the U.S.
64 of which were fatal.
All of the patients were diagnosed with a lung injury
associated with using electronic cigarettes or vaping products.
The name of the disease was later abbreviated to EVALI.
Today, about 50 million people worldwide use
electronic nicotine delivery systems and vaping devices.
It’s a huge market conservatively estimated, to be worth around 7 billion dollars.
In Great Britain, where vaping has been stealing a lead
over conventional tobacco smoking,
even the Health Authority tacitly supported
consumers of the new nicotine delivery systems.
[ Lady 1 ] They do agree that it is bettwe for you than smoking,
they put… they released this big press release last year,
and said how it was 95% better for you than a cigarette.
[ Man 1 ] You are more likely to die of a heart attack
from energy drinks than anything vape-related.
[ Man 2 ] If you don’t smoke or you don’t vape, then…
then don’t… don’t start at all. Don’t… Don’t start.
[ VO ] The first vaping related deaths in Russia occurred even earlier than in the U.S:
in the Republic of Tatarstan and Leningrad Region in 2016
and in Stary Oskol in 2020.
In every case, the victims were teenagers.
Soon after that, in 2021, the first patient in Moscow was diagnosed with EVALI.
17 year old Arseny Mamaev, was taken to an emergency room with 90% lung damage.
[ Dr Pavel Berezhansky pulmonologist, Morozovskaya children’s city clinic ] If the kid had arrived, maybe a day, or a day and a half later,
it would have been hard to revive and save him
[ VO ] Arseny’s EVALI diagnosis has already had a significant impact on his future:
Several professions are now beyond his reach,
and he can never join a military service.
[ Pavel Berezhansky ] Judging by the statistics, every year, more and more teenagers,
are showing some signs of EVALI syndrome
[ Alex Mitchell ] Alright.
My name is Alex
I live in the town of Provo
[ VO ] Alex from Utah is 20 years old.
His story didn’t just shake America, but the whole world.
[ Alex ] I bought the vape juice.
The reason why I chose it was that I like peach.
I was… I wanted the menthol, the minty menthol as well,
and it was the one that smelled the best out of the…
the options that they let me have to smell from.
And so, I chose that one. And you know, I vaped it that day.
The next day we had gone to my grandma’s house and…
[ Daniel Mitchell, Alex’s father ] He got sick. His stomach hurt, and he was throwing up.
And my wife took him to the doctor, and they said,
“Oh, it’s probably just a flu. Maybe it’s just a flu… A virus.”
And, it didn’t get better. And, it kept getting worse.
And, he sent me a message, when I was at work saying,
“Dad, I can’t stop throwing up, I can’t stop coughing.”
My wife took him back to the doctor,
and he said, “Alex has pneumonia.”
He said, “I don’t think he needs to go to the hospital.
We’ll just give him antibiotics, and he can come home.”
No effect. No effect. He gets worse.
[ Dmitry Vladimirov CEO, Russian union of non-medical inhalation enterprises ] There's been a lot of fakery...
all intended to demonise vaping
I mean, you can make up anything, right?
[ Dmitry Makarov Deputy department head, federal consumer rights service ] There is no convincing evidence that these devices can help you quit smoking, nothing
[ Mariné Gambaryan head, tobacco prevention and control centre, Russian ministry of health ] The nicotine in e-cigarettes is very toxic and really quickly becomes habit-forming
[ Sergey, leading vape video blogger ] I do most of my videos here, sometimes outside. Now, I'll try one for TikTok
The Medusa is a vape trick, you blow a ring and stretch it a bit. That worked OK
And again...
I'm ashamed of smoking since I was 13 or 14, I can't really recall starting
Hi miss, do you smoke? Hello, do you smoke?
Hi, do you smoke? Good day to you, sir!
Miss, do you smoke?
Good day, do you smoke?
This tobacco doesn't burn, it heats, so it's less harmful. May I show you for 2 minutes?
I work for a tobacco company that makes cigarettes and a heated tobacco system,
a cigarette alternative, not a cigarette. It's 90% less toxic than a cigarette
Tobacco heats, not burns, so it's less harmful
[ VO ] Scientists are now busy trying to study the long-term affects of vaping.
[ Man 3 ] Just now, rats are being put in an exposure chamber,
to see how electronic cigarette vapour affects them
[ Tatyana Makalish research assistant, Crimean federal university ] If we look at a rat's lungs after being exposed to e-cigarette vapour,
we can see that they have almost no space left in which to inhale
And so, there are clear pathological changes
[ Anatoly Kubyshkin vice-rector for research, Crimean Federal university ] When exposed to various concentrates,
the aggressive effect on lungs gets worse
[ VO ] Alex is a direct descendant of Irish immigrants who all lived in Provo.
Alex’s grandfather, great grandfather and great-great grandfather are all buried here.
The Mitchells are an average middle-class American family.
His father is a mechanic, and his mother a housewife.
Withoput their medical insurance, the war against EVALI
would have had a very different outcome:
the family could never have afforded the medical bills.
[ Alex ] I just kind of slept for whole time I was there.
No one really thought anything different.
We just all thought that I didn’t just feel good.
The next day, I complained to my mom about
feeling like I could only take half of a breath.
And it would hurt, it would just hurt,
if I tried to take anything more than a half of a breath.
Almost like as if someone was squeezing the lower
parts of my lungs, when I was trying to breathe.
And… yeah, we… At that point, we were like, “Okay, something’s not right.”
[ Daniel ] A doctor from California, he took
one look at Alex and he said, “This boy is dying. He’s dying!”
They have a giant team of doctors, pulmonologists, cardiologists,
everybody under the sun, and…
As they consulted, they said “Here’s this boy,
he’s dying, and we have to do something right now.”
This is what they call a BIPAP — it forces air into your lungs.
He still wasn’t responding.
Here is intubators. That’s… That’s day 4.
[ Elliott Mitchell Alex’s brother ] Oh well, it was definitely a shock, it was just kind of out-of-nowhere thing.
I didn’t really have time to process it that much when it had happened.
It kind of left me a little speechless, just, you know, seeing someone like,
you know, my old brother, who has always been, you know, tougher than me, you know.
[ Man 4 ] Can you nod your head for Chelsea? Can you nod ‘yes’?
Alex? Okay, thumbs up! Can you give her a smile?
Alex? Can you give her another thumbs up?
Good job! That’ll do, bud!
[ Elliott ] He was a little bit of a badass, just…
talking hospital bed. It was… It was really bad.
I mean, similar to what my dad had said: I was expecting to lose my brother.
And… And I was mad about it, you know.
There was nothing I could have done.
I couldn’t help in any way other than just sitting there, you know, watching him die.
It was really hard.
[ Marine Gambaryan ] We need to keep America's experience in mind
Because there, they have a very serious EVALI epidemic
It became clear that the cause was prolonged use of e-cigarettes
[ Dmitry Makarov ] We'd climb up through thorns to get products off the market if they're dangerous
[ Dmitry Vladimirov ] Just the conscientious stores, they monitor product quality
They all know each other, so they sell decent stuff, right?
[ Joel Uranga vape shop owner ] All right. So, this is one of my favourite kits, this is what I have right now,
and yeah, this is a taint that I use right now,
and they experiment, have fun.
And that’s a lot of my customers that come in here, they…
they get excited when they see all the new flavours,
when I bring in a new brand, this and that.
They don’t want to smoke tobacco, they want to vape tobacco.
Strawberry, banana, one day they try coffee-flavoured or macchiato or something like that.
But you know, that’s part of the whole vaping experience, you know.
It’s gets your mind off smoking cigarettes.
[ James vape shop customer ] Honestly, I used to smoke too many cigarette sticks,
but I switched over to the vaping just to have a
healthier transition or, you know, have a healthier alternative.
I feel a lot better since I stopped smoking
the cigarettes to vaping. I feel a lot better.
I… I feel like I’m not short of breath.
When I smoke the cigarettes, I feel short of breath instantly.
When I smoke the vape, I… I don’t feel much different other than the… the relaxation.
[ Lady 2 ] I’m not touching, okay?
Is your muscle sore through here?
[ Daniel ] It was such a new medical problem
in the United States that nobody knew, the doctors didn’t know.
[ Monica Alex’s mother ] There’s a few points that were really the turning points,
when they had to intubate him.
And then, walking in and seeing him on the tubes.
Those were pretty hard.
[ Alex ] Having the tube down my throat was really uncomfortable to me,
and in my, I was in a derogatory state, I was trying to rip it out.
I go unconscious for 10 minutes, and then I come right back up and start fighting,
because I’m very claustrophobic.
[ Daniel ] He would try to rip the lines out,
and had he had pulled that ECMO — it’s called the cannulas —
had he pulled that out, through his lung or through his jugular,
he’d have been dead. 30 seconds would have killed him.
I cried. I did. I cried, I wept, and I’m not ashamed.
He’s my son, I love him.
[ Alex ] So, when I first got it, I had lost my chance to go to college that year.
You know, being in the hospital for 3 weeks, you…
I wouldn’t be able to have walked around campus.
EVALI and COVID stopped my plans to go to college.
But once I realised that I couldn’t walk
and that I had to actually be like, lifted up
and helped to walk down even maybe 20 feet…
I… guess I kind of broke down a little bit
because, you know, here I am this avid hiker, and I can’t even walk 20 feet anymore.
I carry it with me for animals when I’m hiking,
mountain lions, rattle snakes if you can’t get away from it.
[ VO ] It’s a big day for Alex.
He and his brother, Elliott will attempt a path they’ve walked before.
This will be a serious test after EVALI,
Alex needs to know if he’s up to the task!
[ Alex ] Do you have your keys? [ Elliott ] Yes.
[ Alex ] I would say that the most dangerous thing to worry about when hiking,
where we’re gonna go hiking, is the rattlesnames.
There was one time, me and my friends, we were hiking and
my friend’s walking in front of me and he like jumps, he’s like “Oh! Sh**”
And I’m like, “wait a minute”, and I see that it’s a snake about this far to my foot!
[ Monica ] OOOh! What are you doing? We don’t want you to go out!
[ VO ] The day has come and Alex is determined to follow a particular route.
He wants to put himself through an exercise as intense as he was used to before Evali.
[ Alex ] When we started finding fossils,
it may have just peaked that even more, ‘cos
when you find… you find cool rocks as a kid, and you’re like…
you go up into the mountains and you come back 20 lbs heavier.
[ Alex ] Is that a lizard? [ Elliott ] Yeah!
[ Alex ] That’s cool!
I know that the coral around here was from
even before, like Bonneville, which was I think 100,000 years ago.
All of this used to be under shallow ocean.
[ Elliott ] Oh! What is… Is that coral?
[ Alex ] Yeah, this looks like coral.
[ Elliott ] Super-hot though
[ Alex ] So you can find fossils on the road!
And we still find so many.
Like, we’re finding them all the time from shell imprints to crinoid stems,
um, it’s my goal to find an ammonite but I don’t know if I’ll ever find any of those.
I feel OK, a little…
I’m a little out of breath but…
[ Joel ] The places where Eddie is, where everybody hangs out on a
Friday and Saturday night, everybody gets together, parties, has fun,
and yeah, I haven’t been here in a couple of
years but back when I used to come here they’d let
you just vape out here, smoking, they won’t allow
the cigaretes of anything like that but now,
with the new signs and everything, they don’t
want vaping anywhere. They treat it like cigarette
smoking, you know? Even though it’s cleaner and
smells a lot better, but yeah, it’s crazy now…
I mean, as long as they don’t keep trying to ban all the flavours,
the vape industry will be good, or else it will just…
If they do end up banning the flavours or anything like that,
like the regulations are just going to get so tight towards…
It’s harder to run a shop and you won’t be able to have as much
products in the shop, you know, there won’t be as much variety,
which I feel like that’s important for the customers, is all the variety.
[ Marine Gambaryan ] Manufacturers play with ingredients
by adding different flavourings and additives that attract the younger generation
Those additives are the cause of various lung diseases
all the way up to bronchiolitis, which can be fatal
[ Dmitry Vladimirov ] You just can't compare the nicotine...
and harmful substance levels in tobacco and in vaping
And anyway, when you vape, you don't inhale it into your lungs
[ Dmitry Makarov ] No matter how nicotine gets into your body,
whether by electronic systems or by regular cigarettes - it's harmful
[ Sergey ] Some guys say it's harmful
just, 'vaping is bad'
[ Sergey ] Don't film my legs, remember? [ A girl ] I remember
[ Sergey ] I've been vaping for about 6 or 7 years
My pals have from the start, and nothing's happened
How many cases are there of this disease?
I think it's just lies that cigarette companies came up with to draw attention to cigarettes
ONE DAY BEFORE THE HIKING TRIP
[ Alex ] Favorite chicken burritos
[ Man 5 ] Anything with that? [ Alex ] Uhuh
[ Alex ] Er, the green sauce
[ Man 5 ] You want salsa? [ Alex ] Yes please
[ Man 5 ] Drinks for you guys? Any drinks? [ Alex ] No
[ Man 5 ] There you go [ Alex ] Thank you, have a good day
[ VO ] Almost every weekend, the Mitchells visit their favourite Mexican restaurant.
[ Monica ] Hey, Lilly!
Lilly! Do you want to….
Take Lilly’s.
Do you want any of this other stuff?
[ VO ] It’s the day before the hike, and
the whole Mitchell family gathers around the table.
Alex’s dad, Dan, is off work today
and his sister is already back from school.
[ Monica ] This one! You wanna do that one?
Here’s when you were little, and then you can tell that when you were little,
and that when you got big, and now, you’ve got like that.
And sometimes, it’s hard when you put something fun up,
that the kids did, you don’t want to have it put away
and so we leave it up and…
We love your pictures! Just a funny joke
and it was a funny, cute little picture, and she brought it to Alex at the hospital
to, you know, get well, and, when he saw the picture, he laughed,
because it was cute, and it was funny,
and, it put him into a really… he coughed…
and he really… it scared her, she thought she had hurt him
she was really, really upset and so we…
really didn’t go into a lot of detail for her…
she didn’t know all of what was happening.
[ Lilly Mitchell Alex's sister ] I’m pretty sure I had our cat, Winston, saying,
‘Wait, where’s Alex?’ because, well, he was gone
[ Daniel ] You go from this.
My son’s going to die, I’ll have to bury him to
“hey, he’s getting better”.
Holy crap, he’s going to die. Oh, hey, he’s getting better.
It was… I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to go through that, it was, um…
it was horrible. Heartbreaking
and if anything that happened to Alex,
can save just one person, just save one life, it was worth it.
[ VO ] Today, blogger Sergey and his girlfriend Anna are planning an unusual videocall.
They are meeting someone who, by some miracle, survived Evali.
Alex from Provo happens to be a subscriber.
He even tried to learn Russian in the past.
[ Sergey ] I've lost connection, I'll switch to Wi-Fi
[ Alex ] Hello!
[ Sergey ] Basically, it's well-known that, in vaping, there are 90% fewer toxins than in smoking
[ Alex ] That’s… that’s actually a really good argument,
it’s promoted as a healthier option, and…
it does look cool, I mean… it’s…
being able to do all the smoke tricks…
you know, blow super big clouds of smoke, It’s impressive!
The biggest issue I can see with vaping is…
I personally think it’s more addicting than cigarettes
because they taste good, they smell good.
EVALI is why I stopped.
[ Sergey ] Yes, I've heard that, but they're isolated cases, and unproven
I mean, no one has ever posted about someone getting 100% sick and not recovering
I've never heard that
[ Alex ] When I had vaped my last juice, the peach menthol, um,
it was a new brand which was part of why we thought maybe that could be the cause um…
there is ingredients within the vape
that can interact with any other substances that people may be taking,
or, even… and I highly doubt but maybe even medication,
it could lead to some pretty nasty reactions, um…
[ Sergey ] To add my two cents. How long has vaping been around?
In all that time, there were very few cases of people being hospitalised due to vaping,
just isolated cases
[ Alex ] I would love to see one day
maybe if you didn’t vape anymore. My biggest goal is to inform people.
Nobody knows the full consequences the full time for recovery from EVALI,
well, there’s no long term study where it’s such a new disease.
The doctors aren’t sure, they don’t know how long the recovery period will be
[ Marine Gambaryan ] The long term effects of electronic cigarettes haven't been studied yet
So, we don't know what it might cause in the future
[ Dmitry Vladimirov ] France vapes,
Germans vape,
Italians vape, not to mention England. Yes, you quit smoking...
but you're not giving up nicotine
[ Dmitry Makarov ] It really is a major threat and the main group...
of users, is young people
[ Alex ] Usually, we stop down at that one but…
the cooler one is up here. It is hot, the breeze feels good though.
[ VO ] The hike is almost over.
Alex and Elliott only have a little way left to go.
[ Alex ] Well, when you start finding fossils it really drives you to want to
go up there and look, and explore.
To find something up in the mountains that’s millions of years old,
that no one has seen, that everyone has just walked by…
It’s very special to be the one to realise, that, wow!
That’s what this is! To be able to take it home.
I’m OK
Oh, I’m out of breath.
[ Elliott ] My heart’s beating so fast.
[ Alex ] Oh man, I’m out of breath.
How do you feel?
[ Elliott ] Tired
[ Alex ] I’m I’m… I’m gonna be sick.
[ Elliott ] Oh, hey, you OK?
[ Alex ] When I first got my Evali, I
was very…very surprised to find out that vaping could be the cause of it.
And that vaping would’ve given me any sort of
chance to be hospitalized even
if it would have been for 3 days, or the 3
weeks that I was unfortunately hospitalized.
It changes you; it changes your family.
It isn’t worth the fad of vaping.
It isn’t worth looking cool. It isn’t worth
risking your life over something so addicting.
THERE IS STILL NO AGREED INTERNATIONAL POLICY TO REGULATE THE SALE AND USE OF E-CIGARETTE AND VAPING SYSTEMS
IN THE USA ALONE, THE NUMBER OF YOUNG PEOPLE WHO VAPE IS GROWING BY APPROXIMATELY 1.5 MILLION EVERY YEAR.