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- Spain patient gets pneumonia by e-cigarettes: hospital
- Updated today at 05:19 AM
- MADRID (AFP) - A patient in Spain caught pneumonia from smoking an electronic cigarette too much, the second ever recorded case of lung illness from the devices, the hospital treating him said Thursday.
- The patient, identified by media as a man aged 50, was admitted in the northwestern city of A Coruna for a separate illness and came down with the lung complaint while there, a source at the hospital told AFP.
- "He was diagnosed with exogenous lipoid pneumonia caused by an excessive use of electronic cigarette," said the source at the A Coruna University Hospital, who asked not be named.
- The disease was caused by a vegetable-based ingredient in the replaceable cartridges that produce the vapour for inhalation, the source added.
- Doctors diagnosed the pneumonia "a few days ago" and the patient has since been cured and discharged, the source said.
- "According to the medical journals, it is the second case in the world of a breathing complaint related to consumption of electronic cigarettes." The US specialist medical journal Chest in April 2012 recorded the case of a 42-year-old woman who also caught pneumonia from using e-cigarettes.
- Makers of e-cigarettes say they are much less harmful than tobacco and can help people give up smoking. They brushed off the case in A Coruna.
- "There is no proof that this illness was linked to use of an electronic cigarette," said Alejandro Rodriguez, vice-president of the National Electronic Cigarette Association, which represents 500 companies active in Spain.
- "How many people die every day from smoking? If in the 15 years that e-cigarettes have been around only two people in the world have caught light pneumonia from this product, we should say well done to it," he told AFP.
- The battery-powered devices deliver a puff of nicotine vapour in a variety of possible flavours, minus many of the toxic chemicals present in tobacco.
- They are becoming an increasingly popular alternative to tobacco but experts have yet to determine how harmful they may be to people's health.
- Experts at a conference in London last November said about seven million Europeans have turned to e-cigarettes in the past four years.
- In December, the European Union agreed to regulate the e-cigarette market and Spain said it would ban them from public places like hospitals and schools.
- In the United States, lawmakers in the cities of New York and Los Angeles have voted to ban e-cigarettes in public.
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