Eight children from one secondary were sent to hospital after using electronic cigarettes.
Using e-cigarettes, or vaping, has rapidly become a popular habit of Britain’s youngest generation.
Despite the fact that it is less harmful than smoking, parents and teachers are becoming concerned that the trend is becoming endemic as pupils start falling ill from using the devices.
The number of children developing collapsed lungs is now skyrocketing as more illegally sold vapes enter the hands of the country’s youth.
The situation has deteriorated so greatly in recent months that ministers are now getting involved and calling for greater regulation and more restrictions on their use.
Speaking to PA, MP Dr Caroline Johnson said: “A number of children in my constituency have collapsed after vaping and my understanding from the local school is that now eight children from one school in my constituency have required hospital treatment.
“Not all at the same time, at different times over the last few months, just immediately after they had been vaping. These are secondary school-aged children.”
Dr Johnson said the situation in some schools was so bad that some children can’t sit through one essential lesson without needing to go outside and vape.
She said: “I was talking to a teacher from my constituency just recently who said that she has pupils in her school who are struggling to get through a double maths lesson because they need to go out and vape.”
As well as distracting students from their all-important lessons, there are growing concerns over the harm being done to children’s lungs by illegally sold vapes.
One children’s health expert warned that more and more children are being hospitalised with collapsed lungs and “lung bleeding” after using the devices.
Speaking to Sky News, paediatric chest physician Professor Andy Bush said he was “absolutely horrified” by new NHS statistics that show 40 young people under the age of 19 were hospitalised from vaping. Even more shocking was that 15 of these children were aged 9 or under.
He said: “Young children are being exposed to substances of addiction, substances that are toxic and some of the toxicity is not known.”
Professor Bush added: “If a teenager starts smoking cigarettes, probably the worst that’s going to happen to them is they’re going to be sick and throw up behind the bike shed.
“The acute use of e-cigarettes can put them in hospital, can put them in intensive care, thins like lung bleeding, lung collapse and air leak, the lungs fill up with fat.”
Professor Bush isn’t the only health expert concerned at the rapid rise in vaping and the impact on children’s health as a result.
The vice president for policy at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has called for a ban on vaping and warned that youth vaping was “fast becoming an epidemic”.
Dr McKean told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are now seeing children who are presenting to hospitals and to clinics who have got breathing problems related to vaping, we believe.
“We know that disposable vapes are the main vapes children are using. We’ve seen a disturbing rise in the number of children and young people vaping.
“Vaping was first designed to enable people who were addicted to cigarette smoking to come off cigarette smoking and there’s no doubt that if you buy legally carefully produced vapes it’s likely to be a lot less harmful than cigarette smoking.
“What we do know is that these products are not risk-free, are likely to be damaging for developing young lungs and are also terrible for our environment. This is a lose, lose situation.”
