According to Dr. Nguyen Trung Nguyen, Director of the Poison Control Center (Bach Mai Hospital), new tobacco products cause horrific damage to smokers’ health.
He vividly recalls a male patient, just over 20 years old, who was previously in perfect health, but upon hospital admission, suffered severe damage resembling a stroke.
The patient’s brain showed extensive necrosis, in some cases affecting up to a quarter, or even a third, of the brain’s volume, with widespread hemorrhage, far more severe than brain infarction in the elderly. Upon admission, the patient received intensive resuscitation, including hypothermia, mechanical ventilation, and dialysis.
More recently, a 17-year-old male patient was admitted on October 26th in a state of agitation, convulsions, and coma after using e-cigarettes.
A 17-year-old patient suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and kidney failure, conditions typically seen in older individuals due to new tobacco products.At just 17 years old, this young man suffers from multiple age-related diseases, including kidney failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (Photo: Hospital provided).
The patient received emergency treatment for convulsions, intubation, mechanical ventilation, and anesthesia.
“Additionally, the patient developed very early-onset, rapidly progressing kidney failure requiring dialysis. This kidney failure was directly caused by toxic substances in e-cigarettes. Lab tests on the e-cigarette sample provided by the family found two new-generation synthetic drugs: MDMB – 4en PINACA and ADB-4en-PINACA,” Dr. Nguyen stated.
Lung function test results showed severe obstructive ventilatory disorder. This condition closely resembles chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, commonly found in long-term tobacco and traditional pipe smokers, where the airways are poisoned, damaged, edematous, fibrotic, and constricted by tobacco, leading to narrowing.
This condition represents an end-stage tobacco-related lung disease, which is very difficult to treat, severely impacts patients’ health, and poses a significant burden on the healthcare system.
Upon taking the patient’s medical history, he revealed that he concurrently used both e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes. He shared that he started using e-cigarettes at 13 and began smoking traditional cigarettes at 14.
The patient’s e-cigarette use during adolescence led to traditional cigarette smoking and the early onset of obstructive lung disease, even before adulthood.
“These cases are the clearest evidence of the devastating impact of these products – transforming a young person in their prime for studying and working into a patient with damage more severe than that of an elderly person,” Dr. Nguyen emphasized.
Dr. Nguyen warned that e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products unleash an unending trend of using, abusing, and becoming addicted to synthetic artificial chemicals.
E-cigarettes and heated tobacco products inflict comprehensive damage in all aspects for all nations. These products must be swiftly removed from society.
All types of tobacco products run counter to and destroy the principles and efforts to combat environmental pollution, maintain clean air, ensure food safety, drug safety, social order and security, and protect the human race.
