Vapes in the UK have been found to be contaminated with a deadly flesh-eating bug, it has been revealed, as health chiefs issue a warning.
Horse tranquilliser Xylazine, which has caused people to ‘rot from the inside out’ in the US, was found in modified e-cigs seized in Luton, Bedfordshire.
NHS clinics have been warned that the drug could kill users of the contaminated vapes, as well as cause skin and tissue necrosis, The Sun revealed.
‘It could have serious and potentially dangerous effects’, superintendent pharmacist at Chemist Click Abbas Kanani told the publication. ‘In severe cases, respiratory depression can be life-threatening.’
It comes after it was revealed in May that toxic metals, including lead and nickel, were also found to be lurking in cheap vapes puffed by schoolkids in the UK.
Vapes in the UK have been found to be contaimnated with a deadly flesh-eating bug, it has been revealed, as health chiefs issue a warning to clinics
Horse tranquilliser Xylazine, which has caused people to ‘rot from the inside out’ in the US, was found in modified e-cigs seized in Luton, Bedfordshire. It can cause tissue and skin necrosis (pictured)
Brightly-coloured ‘highlighter vapes’, sold in child-friendly flavours like bubble gum and strawberry, contained 12 micrograms of lead per gram, according to a BBC investigation last month. This is 2.4-times the stipulated safe exposure level
Xylazine has been wreaking havoc in the states, and has been responsible for 105 overdoses and nine deaths in one Florida county alone.
And last year, Britain recorded its first death related to the drug, when 43-year-old Karl Warburton, from Solihul, died after taking it.
The drug, which dealers have been mixing with heroin or fentanyl, can cause non-healing skin lesions.
Its presence in vapes comes as levels of children using e-cigarettes in the UK went up by 50% in a year, with the number of kids hospitalised by vaping quadrupling in just two years.
Shock data last month revealed a record 11.6 per cent of 11-17 year-olds in Britain have now tried vaping.
This is up on 7.7 per cent last year and twice as high as rates seen a decade ago — before the UK’s kid vaping epidemic blew up.
Amanda Pritchard described reports of children being harmed by vaping as ‘worrying’ and attacked firms for ‘deliberately’ targeting them with appealing flavours.
The NHS England chief executive said the surge in vaping and resulting hospital admissions among young people is ‘seriously concerning’ and called for urgent action to ‘nip it in the bud’.
And more worrying still, tests on e-cigarettes confiscated from youngsters in the UK found they contained dangerous levels of lead, nickel and chromium.
Some were almost 10 times above safe limits.
Exposure to lead can impair brain development, while the other two metals can trigger blood clotting.
One expert claimed the results of the probe, carried out on e-cigs collected from students at a college in Worcestershire, were the ‘worst I’ve ever seen’.
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Tests on e-cigarettes confiscated from youngsters found they contained dangerous levels of lead, nickel and chromium. Some were almost ten times above safe limits. Exposure to lead can impair brain development, while the other two metals can trigger blood clotting
Although widely accepted as safer than smoking, the long-term effects remain a mystery and doctors fear there could be a wave of lung disease, dental issues and even cancer in the coming decades in people who took up the habit at a young age.
David Lawson, co-founder of Inter Scientific — the lab that analysed 18 different e-cigs — said: ‘In 15 years of testing, I have never seen lead in a device.
‘None of these should be on the market — they break all the rules on permitted levels of metal. They are the worst set of results I’ve ever seen.’
Everything you need to know about e-cigarettes
How much nicotine is in an e-cigarette?
There are many different brands of e-cigarettes, containing various different nicotine levels.
The legal amount of nicotine in an e-liquid capacity in the UK is 20mg/ml equating to between 600 and 800 puffs.
The Elf Bar 600, one of Britain’s most popular vapes, is advertised as coming in nicotine strengths of 0mg, 10mg and 20mg.
How many cigarettes are ‘in’ an e-cigarette?
The Elf Bar 600 contains the equivalent to 48 cigarettes, analysts say.
It delivers 600 puffs before it needs to be thrown away, meaning, in theory, every 12.5 puffs equate to one cigarette.
Experts say for many e-cigarettes, 100 puffs equate to ten normal cigarettes.
Elf Bars are a brand of e-cigarettes often sold in snazzy colours and with child-friendly names and flavours, like blue razz, lemonade and green gummy bear
Is vaping better for your health than cigarettes?
Vaping products are considered to be better than cigarettes as users are exposed to fewer toxins and at lower levels, according to the NHS.
The health service adds that vaping instead of smoking cigarettes reduces your exposure to toxins that can cause cancer, lung disease and diseases of the heart and circulation, such as strokes and heart attacks.
Public Health England, which is now defunct, published an expert independent review in 2015 concluding that e-cigarettes are around 95 per cent less harmful than cigarettes.
However vaping is not risk-free, as while levels in tobacco-products are much higher, e-cigarettes still contain harmful toxins, according to a study by researchers from the Medical University of Silesia in Poland.
And Dr Onkar Mudhar, a London dentist who posts videos on TikTok, said Elf bars can cause gum inflammation, swelling and bleeding.
He said this is because nicotine dries out your mouth and reduces saliva, causing irritation from a build-up of bacteria and food that can’t get washed away.
Nearly 350 hospitalisations due to vaping were logged in England in 2022, which are thought to be mainly down to respiratory problems, such as shortness of breath, chest pain, lung inflammation and, in severe cases, respiratory failure.
