Awaiting Reaction

[jonnoh]

The headline read, "First Child's Death From Liquid Nicotine as 'Vaping' Grows. This provocative headline is followed by a story that states that the police wouldn't comment if the death was related to vaping and it looked like a tragic accident. The event occurred in New York State and is of course tragic. But the article seems definitely skewed to be prejudiced against vaping. The thing is that, again tragically, children die all the time from over hydration, dehydration, sunstroke, car crashes, falling from trees, equipment malfunction, other household poisoning, choking, over or wrong medication, violence, allergies, just plain neglect, etc. etc.

As badly as I feel for this child and his/her parents, I have to also wonder if maybe we should consider banning water, sun, cars, trees, equipment, household chemicals, eating, medicine, peanuts, etc.etc.

The article gives info about what a teaspoon of nicotine could do, and talks about a death of some guy who injected nicotine, and other scary stuff. It is illustrated with pretty pics of vaping liquids that are colourfully packaged yet doesn't admit it was vaping products that were involved in the death. It could have been carelessly used pure nicotine? We don't know.

I see the writing on the wall though, people will be loudly up in arms against us.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, that this was on ABC News online.

[Tug]

As long as all ejuice manufacturers use child proof caps then I don't see how they can point the finger at the vaping industry. Like you said,kids unfortunately die from every day household cleaning chemicals,drowning etc.But you won't see them outlawing Windex or water.I'm not surprised ABC covered this one.

[Tam]

Childproof caps can slow down a child (depending on age), but it's not the magic bullet to making a bottle of e-liquid 100% safe for children. Parents need to be aware of safety issues and keep it in a safe place. Keeping an eye on their child would also be helpful.

People who leave things like e-liquid in places where their kids can get to it need to be better educated on what's inside e-liquid and what it can do. All too often the vaping industry is going to be blamed before it gets better. If ever. *sighs*

[BDM53ENT]

I saw where some idiot posted, ban ejuice because it killed a child. Ghee maybe we could ban automobiles as they kill adults and children on a daily basis. I lust love how dumb a**'s speak before thinking. I don't see the sky falling because of it but it certainly doesn't help.

[Bebop]

I dunno...seems awful fishy. This could be a case of premature reporting. There are NO specifics in this article. NONE. Right now this article is being used to push an agenda and nothing else. I cant imagine how this could be, even. The child was 1 year old. How does a child that small even ingest enough nicotine to harm them? What are the circumstances around how a child that small and unsupervised ingests nicotine? And in what form? Do you know how nasty that stuff tastes? Sounds suspicious to me....

[jonnoh]

Hmm never thought of the fact that the child was 1. I've never raised any kids under 12 and really don't like even teaching the 6 or 7 year olds. I truly have no idea what a 1 year old is capable of doing as I avoid them like the plague. Not that there's anything wrong with young'uns, it's just that I have little patience, a deficiency of mine, not theirs

[Earthling789]

I agree Bebop... The whole story is extremely suspect, and is obviously being used to push an agenda... especially since it is NY!

I feel for the family for their loss, but I think we need far more info before "vaping" is declared as the evil suspect.

Last time I checked, my e-liquid bottles are safely on their shelf, and they don't get together with my guns at night, hot-wire my truck, and go out "looking for trouble", nor do they climb down from the shelf and terrorize my children or animals

A 1-yr old child is capable of getting into MANY things, but they are pretty much limited to the dangers they can REACH. Kids will also ingest darn near anything they can get in their hands, but things that taste bad... not buying it was ingested... ever give a baby a bit of lemon? I'm willing to bet that improper supervision, coupled with improper storage will be the cause of this tragedy (regardless of the source or method of the poisoning)

[spydre]

The article did seems specific to say "liquid nicotine" - to me, that's different from e-juice, that's the nicotine solution put into the juice - like a DIYer (my SO has some unflavored, um, I can't remember what the mg is in a PG solution, but then he further dilutes that with VG). Of course, it's possible that the reporter doesn't know a darned thing about vaping, so is just calling e-juice as a whole "liquid nicotine". At one year of age, there's no way this baby could have gotten a child proof cap off, but at 1, those suckers are climbers. You should see the towers my youngest son erected in order to to get to the cookies kept in the top cabinet on a weekend morning. We had to keep moving the cookies, it scared the piss out of me when I would get up to giggles and see whatever tower he built (the cookies eventually ended up being hid in my dresser, to avoid the tower thing). It says a one year old, so that's anywhere between twelve and twenty-four months, so yeah, on the later end of the spectrum, climbing is a definite possibility. And at that age, it would take much to poison a kid - especially if it was "liquid nicotine" - undiluted. One hundred percent nicotine on the skin can kill an adult. If for some reason a kid of one ate a cigarette, it could make him/her severely sick, if not kill them, as well.

Yeah, it's a tragedy, but I'm sorry, the blame lays squarely in the lap of the parents and whoever's home it was. For not watching the child (I know, you can't watch them constantly, you have to pee sometimes) and for god's sake for not putting that up in a secured cabinet. If it happened at the parents' home, then, yeah, I'm sorry, they should be shot for leaving it where a baby could get it and either get it on them or in their mouths. If it happened at someone else's home, the first thing that person should have done should have been to make sure the kid didn't see the stuff and couldn't get to it.

But the article is full of fear-mongering/fanning the flames of, frankly, ignorant, hateful comments.

If they are thinking about banning juice because of this, they need to ban bleach, ammonia, anti-freeze, and any of a number of chemicals found around the home that kids have accidentally ingested and died from. Except, with those chemicals, the danger to kids isn't so much in the forefront of people's minds, despite the fact that antifreeze smells so sweet - sweet enough that dogs lick it up unbidden and die every year from it.

Edited December 14, 2014 by spydre

[T-Bone]

A 1 year old??

I have two sons, 5 and 3...do you know how long it takes a 2 or 3 year old to do something? Like...4 hours to pick up a toy and put it in their mouth....and the developmental differences from month to month in those early years is incredible...there's a huge difference between a 14 month old and a 16 month old, for example.

I feel terrible for the loss...but there is some lack of supervision here.

Edited December 15, 2014 by The Bone Slummer

[spydre]

My biggest thing with this - other than the lack of supervision - was a) obviously not in a child proof bottle (I would fully support mandating that e-juice be sold in child-proof bottles, as long as the supplier doesn't have to stop selling juice while the transition is under way, if they don't already), and it was where the kid could get to it. Okay, the non child proof bottle, in some cases, I can understand. When we get 120 ml bottles from Better Vapes, it's not a child proof bottle. It has a flip up spout on it. But again, it's not where a kid can get it (well, my 17 and 20 year olds could get it, but not where a toddler can get it). But, like I said in point number 2, IT WAS WHERE THE KID COULD GET TO IT. Which, I agree Bone, leads down the path of lack of supervision - whether it was parental or a babysitter. I mean, if it didn't happen at home, if it happened at someone's home they visited, as a parent, I supervised MORE in those instances. My kids at that age didn't leave my sight unless another person was with them. You just follow them around. So yeah, lack of supervision, and pure idiocy for leaving it wherever it was left that the baby could get into it.

I mean, okay, to take a child darn near everyone has seen pictures of in the press (unless you live under a rock), imagine young Prince George (Prince William and Kate's son) scrambling out of the room, and managing to find a bottle of e-juice, get to it, and swallow some of it, and have time to pass out/become non-responsive all in the time it takes for you to follow him?

[T-Bone]

Yeah, I just don't get it. I was pretty vigilant, as I'm sure any sensible parent is....and you're exactly right in the amount of time it would have taken for this baby to get to it and ingest it.

[spydre]

Not just get it and ingest it, but the baby was already unresponsive when the caretaker, whoever it was, found him. Now, I don't know how quick it would knock a baby out, but you have to assume it's not instantaneous.

[jonnoh]

I missed it because of an impatiently waiting sig other for lunch, but...... BFM 89.9, an FM radio station yesterday devoted a segment about vaping. When I get a free minute I'll give it a listen to the podcast on their website and see which way it was slanted and report. www.bfm.my if anyone wants to listen.

[crush02342002]

It's terrible to say the least. Iv tought my little girl to never touch any of my vape gear even if she sees it on the ground. She is to let an adult know. All my bottles are child proof but IMHO they should call it child resistant and adult proof...lol. In any case I'm sure the parents are having the worst time of their lives with the lose of their child. As parents we need to step it up in our country and pay better, attention, educate, and think ahead for our children's sake. Ok I'm off my soapbox now, you may resume your regularly scheduled program.

[jonnoh]

I recently heard that there's a politician in New York, and I don't even know if it's the city or the state, that wants to ban e cigarettes until there's more info on the safety. This is just hearsay as far as I know, but if it's true, I wonder if said politician ever thought about what America would be like if we waited for everything to be perfectly safe before we tried it. Probably no man on the moon, no victory in WWI and WWII. I sure don't want to live life always worrying if everything is perfectly safe. The evidence for the effects of long term vaping of course aren't in yet, but I for one am quite happy taking the chance because it's the only thing I've ever tried that could keep me off cigarettes. And it's a lot of fun too.