Researchers Race To Find Cause Of Vaping-Related Illnesses.
BERMAN: All right. This morning, we're learning a Nebraska man is the 14th person to die in the U.S. from vaping. The CDC now reports more than 800 documented cases of vaping-related illnesses. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta talked to researchers working to pinpoint the cause of these illnesses. Dr. Gupta joins us now with the very latest on that -- Sanjay.</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, and there's been 46 states now where people have gotten ill as well, so that gives you an idea of the scope of this. John, you know, we talk about the fact that there are sort of two separate issues really at play here with regard to vaping. One we talked about yesterday, which is the concern about youth nicotine addiction. But today, we want to talk about, as you say, this sort of -- what's been called the mystery illness. What exactly is making people sick or even dying. It's an ongoing investigation but here's what we've learned so far.</s>ADAM HERGENREDER, VAPER: I had the shivers and I couldn't control it, so I would just randomly convulse.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): His is a story now repeated hundreds of times around the country.</s>HERGENREDER: I couldn't control myself.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): Young, healthy, and then suddenly struggling for his life.</s>POLLY HERGENREDER, ADAM'S MOTHER: To be laying in a bed and not being able to breathe, it's every parents' nightmare.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): It is cases like Adam Hergenreder's that have prompted the Centers for Disease Control to now open their emergency operations center.</s>GUPTO (on camera): I'm used to it being activated around things like Ebola or hurricanes and things like that. Why vaping?</s>DR. ANNE SCHUCHAT, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: The outbreak of pulmonary injury associated with vaping or e-cigarettes is an emergency. We're seeing young people become critically ill and die.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): Most frightening, eight weeks into the investigation no one knows exactly why.</s>SCHUCHAT: It's important to say that no single product, substance, brand or additive is linked to all the cases right now. And what is on a label may not actually be what the product is.</s>GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): Our guidance is quite simple -- don't do it. Don't do it because we don't know that it is safe.</s>GUPTA (on camera): Why did you do it?</s>JAY JENKINS, VAPER: I didn't think there was any risk in trying it. I'd never heard about anybody having any negative effects from it, so I thought that I had nothing to lose.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): Last year, Jay Jenkins and a friend drove to a convenience store and bought a product labeled CBD, called Yolo -- Yolo, meaning you only live once -- and they vaped it.</s>JENKINS: I took two puffs off of it. The next thing I know I'm feeling crazy, not thinking straight, and not being able to move.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): Within seconds, Jay lost consciousness and started to have frightening hallucinations. His friend drove him to Lexington Medical Center where he started having seizures and breathing difficulties.</s>JENKINS: I thought that I was in hell and that I was already dead.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): So what did cause Jay to react so violently? It's what Professor Michelle Peace has been trying to answer.</s>GUPTA (on camera): They call it the vape lab? Is that what happens?</s>MICHELLE PEACE, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF FORENSIC SCIENCE, VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY: Well, originally, we called it the vape lab.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): What her lab and others have shown is that two- thirds of these products are not what they seem. Some have THC, some have other things. Jay Jenkins, he had vaped a totally synthetic substance. It had no CBD whatsoever and no way to know who manufactured it.</s>GUPTA (on camera): Is the CBD supply chain safe?</s>PEACE: There are pockets or lanes in the supply chain that, right now, probably cannot be trusted. Identifying those lanes, good luck.</s>SCHUCHAT: I think that for the consumer, you really need to be aware right now. Something is leading to death in a number of people and leaving otherwise healthy young people to be hospitalized in intensive care on mechanical ventilators.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): We just don't know what it is. But a possible hint, according to the CDC, nearly 80 percent of people reported using vape products containing THC, whereas just 16 percent reported using nicotine-only vape products. And keep in mind, because THC is illegal in many states, there might be many more people who used it but won't admit it.</s>JULIE ZIMMERMAN, PROFESSOR OF CHEMICAL ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING, YALE UNIVERSITY: And science says that what's in that liquid isn't necessarily the same composition that's in the vaper.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): Julie Zimmerman is part of the team of Yale researchers focused on the chemical and physical reactions when people vape.</s>ZIMMERMAN: There are chemical reactions happening in that solution after the manufacturer mixes the chemicals, even without any heating. The FDA actually regulates them and calls them generally regarded as safe, but that designation is for eating ingestion, not for inhalation -- breathing them into your lungs.</s>GUPTA (on camera): You sort of super-heat these chemicals with these heavy metal coils. You sort of atomize these molecules. They get back into your lungs, they reaccumulate or re-congeal. I mean, I don't know what that does to the body, just like they didn't know what cigarettes did to the body when they first came out. Does that part of it worry you?</s>DR. MICHAEL SIEGEL, PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC HEALTH, BOSTON UNIVERSITY: So, it worries me, for sure, because we don't know the long-term effects. But it doesn't worry me for smokers.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Michael Siegel is a professor of public health at Boston University.</s>SIEGEL: It doesn't worry me for smokers because I know that one out of every two of them is going to die from smoking if they continue to smoke.</s>GUPTA (on camera): If you can't be certain that something is safe right now, would the CDC recommend, at least for the time being, that people just not do it?</s>SCHUCHAT: What we're recommending is if you're concerned about your health risks in light of this investigation that you consider not using e-cigarettes or vaping products until we know more.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): It's a warning Jay Jenkins has heard.</s>JENKINS: I certainly won't do it again.</s>GUPTA (on camera): You won't?</s>JENKINS: I will not. I took a chance and lost once but luckily, they were able to safe my life.</s>GUPTA: One of the -- one of the concerns we've heard many times come up is where has the FDA been in all of this. I think it's safe to say that there is now a lot of traction -- a lot of movement. FDA is looking on several fronts at regulation, including the type of product that Jay Jenkins took -- a CBD product -- which is legal federally because it's CBD hemp, but not well-regulated. So he bought a -- he bought a product from a -- from a convenience store and paid with a credit card. And yet, the product that was labeled CBD was not CBD at all. That's one of the problems the FDA is going to have to address, John.</s>BERMAN: Again, Sanjay, we're so glad you're on this story. Thank you for all of your reporting on this. There is another major medical story we're reporting on this morning. We're learning that major drugstores here in the United States are pulling both the brand name Zantac and its generic forms from the shelves. Why? What do consumers need to know here?</s>GUPTA: Well, this is interesting and this is a problem that we've heard before regarding this impurity called NDMA. It's actually shown up in other medications in the past at low levels and now seems to show up in the -- in the Zantac or ranitidine, which is the actual name for it. It's a -- it's an impurity that in large amounts has been associated with cancer in animals. In low amounts in humans, we don't know. But these drugstores chains, including CVS, are being pretty cautious here. I will say that the FDA is being a little less concerned. They're basically saying look, these levels are such low amounts that the same amounts that are found in many common foods. So they say look, you can consider switching from Zantac to another over-the-counter medication if you're concerned. But the FDA seems less concerned. My guess is that this is going to be off the market for a while. Hopefully, they'll figure out this impurity. And if this is a medication you're reliant on, I think it will probably come back at some point.</s>CAMEROTA: OK, Sanjay, thank you very much. Oh, I'm talking now -- hi.</s>BERMAN: Well, this is just like the puppet.</s>CAMEROTA: Thank you. Thanks for all the information. OK, now to this. This afternoon, New York Congressman Chris Collins, who you'll remember as the first congressman to endorse President Trump -- well, he's expected to plead guilty to insider trading charges. CNN's Brynn Gingras joins us with more. What have you learned, Brynn?</s>BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Alisyn, pleading guilty and resigning from Congress. Chris Collins' resignation from Congress is actually going to be effective this morning when it's addressed on the House floor. And it's really a turn of events for a man who adamantly denied any wrongdoing multiple times, even as he battled to get reelected to his House seat last year. The congressman from Upstate New York will plead guilty, as Alisyn said, this afternoon. To what charges is unclear. But last August, federal prosecutors accused him of giving inside trading information about an Australian biopharmaceutical company. Now, Collins served on the board of that company and he essentially gave a heads-up to his son and an associate when the drug failed an important drug trial, allowing them to dump stock, according to prosecutors. Now, prior to his change of heart, Collins pleaded not guilty to the original indictment and again when the charges were revised. And he won reelection in 2018 even with this hanging over his head. Collins represents a historically red state district. Of course, as Alisyn said, he was the first congressman to endorse Donald Trump for president. And, Collins' son and an associate who were charged with the congressman, are also expected to change their pleas later this week. So we should learn more about this, this afternoon, Alisyn.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes, Brynn. I remember he would -- he's been on our program many times.</s>GINGRAS: Yes.</s>CAMEROTA: We've asked him, I think, specifically about this. It's interesting to see how this is all played out. Thank you very much. And thanks to our international viewers for watching. For you, "CNN NEWSROOM" with Christina McFarlane is next. And for our U.S. viewers, a member of the House Intelligence Committee joins us next on their impeachment push. NEW DAY continues right now.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're trying to find out about a whistleblower.</s>SEN. JOHN WARNER (D-VA): Any rational person would be concerned about the whistleblower's safety after the president's comments.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president now has to worry about conversations that he's having with world leaders being leaked to the press. That is not good.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fact that Mike Pompeo - END