人物:电子烟危机(1)（在线收听）

The Vaping Crisis

电子烟危机

Walker McKnight was just 19 years old when he bought his first e-cigarette. Two months later he was in a hospital fighting for his life 'Vaping Nearly Killed Me'

沃克·麦克奈特买第一支电子烟时只有19岁。两个月后，他在医院里与死神搏斗，“吸电子烟差点要了我的命”

Walker McKnight had never given much thought to vaping.

沃克·麦克奈特从来没想过吸电子烟。

In high school the health-conscious athlete—who often spent five hours a day working out—would occasionally take a drag off a friend's e-cigarette, but it wasn't until he started his freshman year at Valencia Community College that the 19-year-old student decided to purchase his first Juul.

在高中，注重健康的运动员——通常每天花5个小时锻炼——偶尔会吸一口朋友的电子烟，但直到他开始在瓦伦西亚社区学院上大一，这个19岁的学生才决定买他的第一支Juul。

"It gave me a really intense, good feeling," says Walker, recalling how a couple of hits helped take the edge off the pressures of school.

沃克回忆起吸烟如何帮助减轻了学校的压力，他说：“这给了我一种非常强烈而美好的感觉。”

"I could feel my whole body throbbing and tingling." Two months later Walker was fighting a desperate battle to stay alive.

“我能感觉到我全身的悸动和刺痛。”两个月后，沃克开始了一场绝望的求生之战。

He spent nearly four months drifting in and out of consciousness, connected to a respirator in an Orlando hospital, as doctors fought to keep his infected lungs from collapsing and his organs from shutting down.

他在奥兰多一家医院接受了呼吸机的治疗，在将近四个月的时间里，他时而昏迷，时而清醒，医生们努力防止他受感染的肺衰竭，防止他的器官衰竭。

"I begged my parents to let me die," says Walker, now 20, as he fidgets with the oxygen tube under his nose. "I wouldn't wish this on anybody."

“我求父母让我死，”现年20岁的沃克一边摆弄着鼻子下的氧气管一边说。“我不希望这样的事发生在任何人身上。”

Tragically Walker—who estimates that nearly 90 percent of his friends still vape on a regular basis—is just one of thousands of young people across the nation who have been hospitalized with serious lung illnesses associated with vaping.

可悲的是，沃克估计，他的朋友中有近90%仍然定期吸电子烟。全国各地有成千上万的年轻人因吸电子烟而住院，沃克只是其中之一。

"His case is the worst I've seen so far," says Dr. Charles Hunley, critical care specialist at Orlando's Regional Medical Center, where six potentially vaping-related cases have been treated in recent months.

“他的情况是我见过的最严重的，”奥兰多地区医疗中心的重症监护专家查尔斯·亨利博士说，近几个月来，该中心已经治疗了6例可能与电子烟有关的病例。

"Walker was literally dying in front of our eyes."

“沃克就在我们眼前差点死去。”

While e-cigarettes are not new, CDC officials say the past several months have brought an "alarming epidemic" in vaping-related illnesses as well as 47 deaths in the U.S. linked to vaping.

尽管电子烟并不是什么新鲜事，但疾病控制与预防中心的官员表示，在过去几个月里，电子烟造成与电子烟有关的疾病“十分流行，令人担忧”，并导致美国47人死亡。

As health officials scramble to identify the cause of the outbreak, Juul, the nation's largest e-cigarette manufacturer, faces lawsuits from several states for allegedly targeting teens and young people in its marketing campaigns.

就在卫生官员忙于查明疫情爆发的原因之际，美国最大的电子烟制造商Juul面临着来自几个州的诉讼，原因是据称该公司针对青少年开展营销活动。

"Lung injury associated with e-cigarette or vaping product use is serious and potentially fatal," says Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC.

美国疾病控制与预防中心的首席副主任安妮·舒克特博士说：“电子烟或电子烟产品引起的肺部损伤很严重，有可能致命。”

"There is no safe tobacco product."

“没有安全的烟草产品。”

Walker admits that he was oblivious to the dangers of vaping last December when he purchased his first Juul device and a package of four tiny mango-flavored pods—each one containing the same amount of nicotine found in a full pack of cigarettes—at a gas station near his parents' home in Orlando.

沃克承认，去年12月他购买了自己的第一台Juul电子烟，当时他并没有意识到电子烟的危害，在奥兰多他父母家附近的一家加油站，他还买了一包芒果味的小雪茄，每包都含有一包香烟所含的尼古丁量。

"I thought it was cool," says Walker, who transferred to Florida Atlantic University a month later.

一个月后，沃克转学到佛罗里达大西洋大学。

Within weeks—given the pressures of adjusting to a new campus and class schedule—he was vaping a pod or more a day.

几周之内——考虑到适应新校园和课程安排的压力——他每天要抽一包甚至好几包。

"After about a week and a half I stopped getting buzzed from it," he says, "but I'd get nervous and twitchy if I didn't have it."

他说：“大约一周半后，我吸烟不会兴奋了，但如果没有它，我会变得紧张不安。”