>>1223I would ask your doctor for more literature on the subject matter, because it just doesn't seem to be there. My own doctor says he hasn't heard anything about it, and it's not often reported by those in other e-cig forum in threads where they are reporting their experience describing their doctor's reactions.
As to the first link, I'm not really impressed by the findings. By the studies own breakdown of the patient's medical history - she was a trainwreck of a patient that was on several medications.
"Her past medical history also was significant for asthma, reported rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, schizoaffective disorder, and hypertension. Her medications included amlodipine, albuterol metered dose inhaler, lovastatin, lisinopril, multiple vitamins, cyclobenzaprine, citalopram, and multiple psychiatric medications. The patient reported a recent exposure to fumigation chemicals, as the result of a bedbug infestation of her apartment building 2 weeks prior to her hospitalization."
I would be more apt to suggest that there is a high risk of drug interaction or exposures that lead to the conditions inductive to her E-Cigarette causing lipoid pneumonia, and with more testing on similar cases (if they pop up) - perhaps work out why that is and put the relevant info into a warning section of the literature, just like any drug comes with.
In contrast, the case report I found on PubMed was of an otherwise healthy 20 year old male. Though, the case was acute and there was no causative, only a weak correlative, link established. It's basically just a head's up to other doctors that E-Cigs may possibly be involved with the development of acute eosinophilic pneumonia, and that if patients enter the ED with pulmonary symptoms after Ecig use, that AEP should be considered in the diagnosis.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24462024The second link you provided (at least in regards to pneumonia) was citing exactly the same study I already put a link to in my previous post, only filtered through a media outlet. I'm not particularly fond of science and medical reporting in the media, for reasons as described in the pic posted to the left. Sadly, this even effects major science publications like Scientific American and New Scientist (the latter more than the former, but still). I always like going back to the source paper, and to it's credit, the site did a good job of that. Most don't.
Good luck with your search, and definitely give PubMed a try. I didn't find anything particularly relevant, but that's not to say you won't, and there's lots of other good info about E-Cigs there (both positive and negative) - even if it's mostly just abstracts. Sometimes you get lucky and there's a free version in the Link-Out section. Let me know what you turn up.
And just for the record, I wouldn't be surprised if there are strong correlative links to an increase risk of pneumonia, I just don't think the data is there and the exact risk factor has to be known before the statements of "increased risk of pneumonia" can carry any real weight.
Hopefully, if the community can be demonstrated to have a good handle on the actual risk evaluations associated with E-Cig use (which, by and large, they have) and not act like teenagers trying to justify their pot smoking, then we're in that much better of a position to be advocating for sane and reasonable regulations when the regulations do start to really clamp down.