We’ve Been Fighting The Vaping Crisis Since 1937

Before there were vapes, there was sulfanilamide. One of the first great medicines of the antibiotic era, sulfanilamide was a miracle drug at a time when curing pneumonia with a quick trip to the pharmacy seemed akin to walking on water. When a sweet, raspberry-flavored liquid version appeared in stores in early September of 1937, it was a no-brainer prescription for doctors whose sick young patients were still picky enough they might reject even Jesus himself if he returned in the form of a bitter-tasting pill.

By the end of October, more than 100 of those patients had died and regulators were scrambling to figure out why.

All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again. Today, medical experts and federal regulators are struggling to understand a mysterious lung disease linked to the use of electronic cigarettes. As of Sept. 17, 530 people have been diagnosed across the country, seven of whom have died. Neither the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor the Food and Drug Administration can definitively say what is causing the illness or why a device that was supposed to help people stop smoking cancer-causing cigarettes has, itself, turned deadly.