At least five dead in US from vaping-related lung disease

At least five people have died in the United States after vaping, officials said Friday, in an outbreak that has sickened hundreds with severe pulmonary disease and left several teens in induced comas.

Federal officials said that no single substance has been found to be present in all the laboratory samples being examined, however investigators in New York said they were now focusing on black market cannabis e-cigarette products containing vitamin E oil.

On Friday, local health authorities in California and Minnesota announced the vaping-related deaths of two individuals, both older and in relatively poor health, at least one of whom had used products containing THC, the principal psychoactive compound in cannabis.

There are now more than 450 possible cases of pulmonary illness associated with vaping, more than double the figure reported last week, according to Ileana Arias, acting deputy director for non-infectious diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Daniel Fox, a pulmonologist in North Carolina, said that patients he had examined had a non-infectious pneumonia known as lipoid pneumonia, which can occur "when either oils or lipid-containing substances enter the lungs."