Congress calls for e-cigarette research after spate of deaths

United States lung injury toll linked to e-cigarettes exceeds 1,000, with 18 deaths

Raja Krishnamoorthi, chair of the House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, has written to the National Institutes of Health to urge the agency to fund research into the long-term health effects of electronic cigarette use—also known as ‘vaping’—which he said “may have killed and injured hundreds of Americans”.

His letter, sent on 1 October, cited 805 cases of lung illness associated with vaping that had been identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency updates this figure every Thursday. “The outbreak has resulted in at least 12 deaths, and these figures may grow as state health departments conduct retro-analyses,” he wrote.