Policy-based evidence on e-cigarette, or vaping product, use–associated lung injury

An editorial is not a literature review and so we could cite only a small number of instances of misreporting. We chose examples from the quality rather than the tabloid media (ABC, Guardian, New York Times and nine papers), including two cases in which the journalists resisted our attempts to correct their misleading stories about the causes of the e‐cigarette, or vaping product, use–associated lung injury (EVALI) outbreak. Neither has written a follow‐up story reporting that vaping contaminated cannabis oils was the most likely cause of the outbreak, in line with advice from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Mike Daube defends these stories for linking the EVALI outbreak and the uptake of nicotine vaping among youth in the USA by claiming that some mentioned a possible role for tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). He ignores the headlines and leads in these articles and TV stories, all of which clearly linked the EVALI outbreak to youth vaping of nicotine. Some grudgingly noted a possible role for THC vaping but this was usually buried towards the end of each article.