As of October 8, 2019, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports over 1,200 lung injury cases associated with the use of e-cigarettes or vaping. Twenty-six people, from twenty-one different states, have died because they used e-cigarettes or vaping products. All this and the manufacturers of these products continue to profit seemingly without restraint.
As this health crisis unfolds, there are serious questions to be put to manufacturers like Juul and others. Did they know the risks and decide that the potential to profit was too great to care? Or did they produce and sell a product without testing it, expecting that if the worst happened it would be someone else’s problem?
Putting aside concerns with the product itself, the way vaping products have been packaged, advertised and sold suggests that the industry targeted children and teens (whose lack of judgment is a biological fact) to get them hooked. It is remarkable that years after the tobacco industry was called out for this same conduct, the vaping industry aerosolized nicotine in kid pleasing flavors and suggested vaping as a “healthy alternative” to cigarette smoking. Neither the sellers, nor the government regulators, have released the results of the health impacts of coating young lungs with a chemical soup of potential toxins, including nicotine.
The free market does a good job of allowing individuals to make choices that maximize their individual perceived enjoyment of life. That general proposition doesn’t work, however, when manufactures and marketers misrepresent their products, or simply fail to consider the obvious risks, especially when the products are targeted to youth. Under the best of circumstances and with complete information, we know that children and teens don’t always make rational choices.
Those who line their pockets while sentencing thousands of youngsters to a life of gasping for air (or whose lives are ended by these products) should be held to account, both by civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions. Civil lawsuits can force change by imposing the financial burden of choosing to deceive and manipulate the marketplace on those who make those choices. Juries comprised of everyday folks with common sense judgment get to impose financial accountability for such choices. Hitting scoundrels who choose to prey on children in their pocketbook is the way the legal system can force a change in behavior and protect the public. Importantly, imposing financial responsibility will do some real good for those who have been severely injured and for their families.
The personal injury lawyers at Tenn And Tenn, PA believe that e-cigarette and vape companies should be held accountable for any negligence that has contributed to your health problems. If you or a loved one developed illness or other complications due to vaping and the use of e-cigarettes, call us today.