{"id":18046,"date":"2020-05-28T19:26:19","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T23:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opsweb.wpengine.com\/?p=18046"},"modified":"2020-10-21T15:49:55","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T19:49:55","slug":"sammies-finalist-solved-a-vaping-health-crisis-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog\/sammies-finalist-solved-a-vaping-health-crisis-mystery\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Sammies finalist solved a health crisis mystery tied to vaping"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Before the nation had to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of public health officials worked behind the scenes to solve a mysterious health crisis that sent 2,800 young people to emergency rooms around the country. In only a few months, Dr. Peter Briss, and a team he led at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, identified a chemical compound found in vaping products that was causing life-threatening lung injuries. They communicated the health danger to the public and ultimately saved lives.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The work of Dr. Briss and his team reflects the Partnership\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/our-work\/public-service-leadership-model\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Public Service Leadership Model (opens in a new tab)\">Public Service Leadership Model<\/a>, so we broke down his actions into the subcompetencies found under the model\u2019s \u201cleading change\u201d section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Vision Setting<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>As more states started reporting cases of these lung injuries, Briss quickly set a vision for a path ahead that included three things: pinpointing the outbreak\u2019s cause, preventing further hospitalizations and deaths, and quickly getting information to the public. He also communicated this vision to 50 state public health agencies\u2014each with its own regulations, guidelines and systems\u2014so they could work together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Adaptability<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>At first, Briss and his team didn\u2019t know how to track\nnationwide cases, so they adapted and repurposed a system normally used to\ntrack food-borne illnesses. When that system couldn\u2019t read the different types\nof data coming in, the team created a special code to rewrite the information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Innovation and Creativity<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>To determine what caused the outbreak, the laboratory teams collected lung and vaping product samples from patients and rapidly developed an innovative diagnostic assessment to determine what toxins were present. \u201cThat kind of work in a research lab would usually take a few years to do, and they got it up and running and out there for public health action within weeks,\u201d said Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director at the CDC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Influence<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The team confirmed vaping products were the cause of the illness, but public health officials were still hesitant to say vaping was unsafe because it was viewed as a better alternative to cigarettes. Briss influenced public health officials to issue guidance informing the public to stop using vaping products completely until the offending substance could be isolated. \u201cThis was not a new virus or germ. This was a need for behavior change,\u201d Schuchat said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the\nteam identified Vitamin E acetate as the chemical causing the illnesses, Briss also\nconvinced vaping product manufacturers to work with the CDC in addressing the\nsituation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/servicetoamericamedals.org\/honorees\/peter-a-briss-m-d-and-the-2019-lung-injury-response-team\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Read more about Briss and his team (opens in a new tab)\">Read more about Briss and his team<\/a> as an example of leading through change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before the nation had to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of public health officials worked behind the scenes to solve a mysterious health crisis that sent 2,800 young people to emergency rooms around the country. In only a few months, Dr. Peter Briss, and a team he led at the Centers for Disease&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":18087,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sort-date":"","content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7594],"tags":[9153,9647],"class_list":["post-18046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leadership-collaboration","tag-public-service-leadership-model","tag-service-to-america-medals"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.2 (Yoast SEO v26.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How a Sammies finalist solved a health crisis mystery tied to vaping<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Partnership&#8217;s Public Service Leadership Model identifies &#8220;leading change&#8221; as one of its competencies. Dr. Peter Briss and a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team exemplified this competency when they identified how vaping was causing life-threatening lung injuries.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog\/sammies-finalist-solved-a-vaping-health-crisis-mystery\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How a Sammies finalist solved a health crisis mystery tied to vaping\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dr. Peter Briss and a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team identified how vaping was causing life-threatening lung injuries.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog\/sammies-finalist-solved-a-vaping-health-crisis-mystery\/\" \/>\n<meta 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