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An 18-year-old showed up in a Long Island emergency room, gasping for breath, vomiting and dizzy. When a doctor asked if the teenager had been vaping, he said no. The patient’s older brother, a police officer, was suspicious. He rummaged through the youth’s room and found hidden vials of marijuana for vaping. “I don’t know where he purchased it. He doesn’t know,” said Dr. Melodi Pirzada, chief pediatric pulmonologist at NYU Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, N.Y., who treated the young man. “Luckily, he survived.” (Kaplan and Richtel, 8/31)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday warned people not to use vaping ingredients bought on the street, and to stop modifying either nicotine or cannabis e-cigarette devices, in an effort to curb the vaping-related lung sicknesses that have alarmed health officials in more than two dozen states this summer. Despite the lack of evidence pointing to a single flawed product or device common among many of the patients suffering respiratory problems, the agency took the unusual step of issuing several recommendations — including telling people worried about their health that they should not even use e-cigarettes and should consult a doctor if they are trying to quit smoking. (Kaplan, 8/30)

There does not appear to be a single product involved in all of the cases, but many of the patients reported through Aug. 27 said they vaped THC or cannabinoids like CBD, the agencies said in a news release. Expressing growing concern about the outbreak, the agencies said they were "working tirelessly" to investigate the illnesses, which resulted in at least one death, in Illinois. (Owermohle, 8/30)

State and federal health authorities are focusing on the role of contaminants or counterfeit substances as a likely cause of vaping-related lung illnesses — now up to 354 possible cases in 29 states, nearly double the number reported to be under investigation last week, The Washington Post has learned. Officials are narrowing the possible culprits to adulterants in vaping products purported to have THC, the component in marijuana that makes users high, as well as adulterants in nicotine vaping products. (Sun and McGinley, 8/30)

Patients, mostly teenagers and young adults, often first report symptoms like breathing difficulty, coughing, chest pain and fatigue, officials said, which gradually grow worse and have resulted in hospitalization. Some patients also experienced diarrhea and vomiting. Many patients needed assisted ventilation, and some had to be intubated, according to the CDC, and one adult in Illinois died after being hospitalized for severe respiratory problems linked to recent e-cigarette use. (Abbott, 8/30)

E-cigarette companies have been under fire lately as health authorities struggle to deal with what they have called an epidemic of vaping among young people. (Hellmann, 8/30)

Health officials in Missouri are warning residents about the potential dangers of vaping. The state’s Department of Health and Senior Services has issued a health advisory for severe lung conditions possibly related to e-cigarette use. It comes after Illinois reported what is believed to be the first vaping-related death in the United States. (Pratt, 9/2)