--- title: Texas Teen's Death Is Nation's Youngest in Vaping Outbreak description: The death of a 15-year-old in Texas reportedly marks the youngest vaping-related fatality in the U.S. since the outbreak began last summer. canonical: https://time.com/5763506/texas-teen-vaping-death/ author: Sanya Mansoor article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-01-12T19:21:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:52:23.747Z article:section: Health og:title: 15-Year-Old Texas Teen's Death Is Nation's Youngest Vaping-Related Fatality in Current Outbreak og:description: CDC says 57 deaths have been confirmed in 27 states and D.C. as of Jan. 7, 2020 og:url: https://time.com/5763506/texas-teen-vaping-death/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 15-Year-Old Texas Teen's Death Is Nation's Youngest Vaping-Related Fatality in Current Outbreak twitter:description: CDC says 57 deaths have been confirmed in 27 states and D.C. as of Jan. 7, 2020 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # 15-Year-Old Texas Teen's Death Is Nation's Youngest Vaping-Related Fatality in Current Outbreak > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=e7095a2e-d07b-411f-8c5e-390997375690&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Ongoing Story Behind the Netflix Documentary "Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul” [Watch (HLS stream): The Ongoing Story Behind the Netflix Documentary "Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul”](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/us8OUyv1.m3u8) (4:08)  _Published 2023-10-20. TIME health correspondent Jamie Ducharme talks about her book and documentary, Big Vape. The Rise and Fall of Juul_  by [Sanya Mansoor](https://time.com/author/sanya-mansoor/)  ## Sanya Mansoor Jan 12, 2020 7:21 PM UTC  by [Sanya Mansoor](https://time.com/author/sanya-mansoor/)  ## Sanya Mansoor Jan 12, 2020 7:21 PM UTC The death of a 15-year-old in Texas marks what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is calling the youngest [vaping](https://time.com/5549340/vaping-addiction-treatment/)\-related fatality in the U.S. since the current outbreak began last year. Dallas County Health and Human Services officials reported the death of a teen “with a chronic underlying medical condition” who lived in Dallas County in a [press release](https://www.dallascounty.org/Assets/uploads/docs/hhs/press-releases/2019/DCHHS%20Reports%20first%20EVALI%20death%20for%202019.pdf) issued on New Year’s Eve and confirmed the teen’s age to TIME. The incident is Dallas County’s first death related to e-cigarette, or vaping, product-use associated lung injury, local officials said. “Reporting a death in a teen due to EVALI is so tragic,” said director of the agency, Dr. Philip Huang, in a statement. “We are seeing that severe lung damage, and even death, can occur with just short term use of these products.” ### More From TIME [The CDC said data suggests](https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic%5Finformation/e-cigarettes/severe-lung-disease.html) that the current outbreak began in June 2019\. As of Jan. 7, 2020, the CDC has received reports of [more than 2,600 hospitalized cases](https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic%5Finformation/e-cigarettes/severe-lung-disease.html) of EVALI — the official name for e-cigarette, or vaping, product-use associated lung injury — or deaths from 50 states, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Fifty-seven deaths have been confirmed in 27 states and D.C. with ages ranging from 15 through 75, according to the CDC, which notes that more deaths are “currently under investigation.” Last month, the CDC announced that [vitamin E acetate](https://time.com/5753947/vaping-lung-disease-outbreak-peak/) is a big reason for the country’s vaping-related lung illness outbreak, which it also indicated appears to be coming to an end. E-cigarettes remain illegal for those younger than 18 but the law has done little to stop teens from vaping in greater numbers. [Federal data](https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data%5Fstatistics/fact%5Fsheets/youth%5Fdata/tobacco%5Fuse/index.htm) notes that among middle and high school students, e-cigarette use rose from 3.6 million in 2018 to 5.4 million in 2019. [The New York _Times_](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/health/teen-vaping-death.html) reported that before the Texas teen’s death, the youngest reported vaping fatality was a 17-year-old who lived in the Bronx borough of New York City. ## Transcript My name is Jamie Ducharme. I'm a health correspondent at Time Magazine and the author of big Vape. The incendiary rise of Jewel, which was the inspiration for the Netflix series, big Vape, the rise and fall of juul nearly 2,000. There was a sense that could do no wrong to move fast and break things. Big Vape follows the rise of juul labs, which is an e-cigarette company that set out to make a vaping device that could make cigarettes obsolete. But instead, what happened is Jules became incredibly popular among teenagers and countless young people across. The us became addicted to juul. I wrote my book over the course of 2020 and it came out in mid 2021. And at that time, the story of Jewel and The Vaping industry was still evolving a lot of things for influx and changing. And that has continued over the more than two years since the book came out. Many of those developments were included in the Netflix series, but even the series ended, before the story of Jewel, head wrapped up. I don't think anyone could have anticipated, how many children would want this product is cuz Jewel became so popular with teenagers. The company was sued repeatedly by school districts by State Attorneys General by individual kids and families who alleged that Jewel had wrongfully addicted, young people to nicotine and over the course of the past few years Jewel has paid almost three billion dollars to settle these various lawsuits which has been understandably, a huge financial hit for the company using e-cigarettes today, an increase of 3 million in just two years ago, where they had applied for FDA authorization, which they need to keep their products on the market in the US. But the FDA hadn't decided either way, whether they would grant that. And then in June of 2022, the FDA decided that Jules had not met the stand. Did the FDA has set and ordered them off. The market will very quickly appealed that decision and the FDA agreed to do a second review of the company's data, which more than a year later is still ongoing. So it's still kind of unclear what the future of juul will hold. So interesting Lee even though jewels and tire problem as a company, was that too many teenagers were using it over the years. Teenagers have kind of moved on most of them who Vape are not using to let this point, they are using cheaper single-use disposable e-cigarettes, which because they are regulated differently than reusable products. Like Jewel still come in tons and tons of flavors, do seem to be really appealing to underage. Users disposable E-cigarettes are actually regulated even less than reusable e-cigarettes like Jewel, most of the companies on the market at this point have not gone through any FDA review process. So they're technically sold illegally, but the FDA has an incredibly difficult job ahead of it and trying to Tamp down this ever-growing Market, where tons of companies are entering the market all the time, they're importing products from overseas. So the FDA has a huge job in his hand. One thing that has remained constant in the five years I've been reporting on vaping is that researchers cannot agree about what the role of e-cigarettes should. Be some feel very strongly that e-cigarettes can help adult smokers quit and help them transition to a product that is not completely safe, but safer or less dangerous. Other researchers think that e-cigarettes really just prolong nicotine addiction and don't do a great job of helping smokers quit and are potentially damaging to their house and raising the risk of things like heart disease, and lung disease. So researchers take extremely different views on the question of whether E-cigarettes are good or bad, but I think there is, I know there is Broad agreement that anybody who is not currently using tobacco products of any kind, should not start. 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