In the Western U.S. state of Colorado, the National Western Stock Show draws thousands of visitors, exhibitors and competitors, a mix of entertainment and education about livestock and agriculture. VOA’s Scott Stearns tells us what some young people are up to at the show. (Camera: Scott Stearns)
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washington — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is trying to create friction between Tokyo and Seoul, South Korea, and undermine their trilateral relations with the United States as security cooperation among them deepens, analysts said.  

Washington, Seoul and Tokyo conducted trilateral naval drills in the international waters south of Jeju Island from Monday to Wednesday, said South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).   

The exercises involving nine ships, including the USS Carl Vinson, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, were aimed at enhancing deterrence against North Korean nuclear, missile and underwater threats, the JCS said. 

North Korea is taking an increasingly hostile stance toward South Korea. Calling for the amendment of its constitution to refer to South Korea as its “principal enemy,” Kim said Pyongyang should plan for occupying South Korea if war breaks out.   

He made the remarks in a speech on Monday to the Supreme Assembly, the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, said state media KCNA. 

A day earlier, North Korea test-fired what it said was a solid fuel intermediate range ballistic missile with a hypersonic warhead.

Pyongyang also fired more than 200 rounds of artillery shells near Yeonpyeong Island on a disputed maritime border with South Korea on January 5 and more than 60 rounds near the same island on January 7. Yeonpyeong Island is about 120 kilometers west of Seoul. 

While escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Kim sent a message to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on January 5 conveying sympathy over a powerful earthquake that shook Ishikawa prefecture, leaving at least 200 people dead and more than 200 missing as the new year began.  

In the message, Kim expressed “his deep sympathy and condolences” to Kishida for losses caused by the earthquake, KCNA reported on January 6.  

Analysts said although North Korea has relayed condolence messages to Japan after disasters in the past, this is the first time Kim personally reached out to a Japanese prime minister.

“While Kim Jong Un may wish to drive a wedge between Japan and the ROK, the real intention, subtle but still real, is to drive a wedge between Japan and America, in spite of last year’s successes at Camp David in the trilateral summit,” said Kenneth Dekleva, a senior fellow at the George H.W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations.

At the Camp David summit, U.S. President Joe Biden, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, and Kishida agreed to cooperate on multiple measures to bolster deterrence against North Korea.

Dekleva, who served as a State Department psychiatrist analyzing foreign leaders including Kim from 2006 to 2016, continued, “Another intention of equal importance is to test the U.S.-ROK relationship, especially given the recent dangerous, bellicose threats of war made recently by Kim Jong Un.”  

Kim ordered his military forces to prepare for war with the U.S. and “South Korean puppets and Japs,” according to KCNA, describing Kim’s speech made at a planning meeting of his ruling Workers’ Party on December 31.

Pyongyang has been critical of the trilateral ties forged after Seoul and Tokyo mended relations in March. Disputes rooted in Japan’s colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945 had strained relations for decades.  

Ken Gause, an expert on North Korea’s leadership and political system at the Center for Naval Analyses,  said Kim’s message also signals Pyongyang could be “keeping its options open for engagement.”  

“North Korea is trying to put Japan in a situation where it has to choose between its own self-interest and the self-interest of the alliance as a whole,” he said.  

Kishida said in May that he is willing to meet Kim to discuss the return of Japanese who were abducted by North Korea in the 1960s and 1970s.  

At North Korea’s summit with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September 2002, Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, admitted the country had abducted 12 Japanese nationals. North Korea returned five of them to Japan in October of that year. 

Japan says North Korea abducted 17 Japanese citizens in the 1970s to 1980s.  

Shihoko Goto, Asia program director at the Wilson Center, said, “The abduction issue remains a highly emotional agenda in Japan, and moving forward to seek a resolution is high on the agenda of Kishida’s government.” 

She added that Kim’s message of condolence “was seen favorably in Tokyo and seen as an opportunity for greater dialogue, if not improved relations, between the two countries.” 

However, she said, Tokyo will be “in lockstep” with Seoul and Washington in deterring North Korea, as Pyongyang also is “an existential threat” to Japan. 
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chicago — As temperatures hover below freezing in Chicago, dozens of asylum-seekers are staying in the lower level of a library until the bitter cold gripping much of the country lifts. 

But after that, Chicago’s plans for offering immediate shelter to the growing number of migrants arriving in the nation’s third-largest city remain murky. 

For more than a year, Chicago has wrestled with how to house new arrivals until shelter space is free, utilizing measures that city leaders insist are a stopgap. Last week, it was parked city buses. Before that it was police station lobbies and airports. The makeshift approach has frazzled volunteers, nonprofit groups and migrants wary of the lack of a long-term plan, particularly during the city’s long winters. 

“The city’s favorite word for everything is ‘temporary,'” said Vianney Marzullo, a volunteer who has helped migrants staying at O’Hare International Airport. “It’s their new choice of Band-Aid word. Everything is temporary, temporary, temporary.” 

Chicago has struggled, like New York and Denver, to deal with the crisis that started in 2022 when migrants began arriving in Democratic-led cities, largely at the direction of Texas Governot Greg Abbott. The winter weather has further complicated efforts. Last week, New York, which has received more than 170,000 migrants, evacuated a massive tent camp ahead of a storm. Big-city mayors have asked repeatedly for more federal help. 

Chicago’s response has stood out for its haphazard approach with a heavy reliance on volunteers who have spent more than a year providing medical care, food and donated items. 

City leaders say the situation keeps changing and there have been snags along the way. 

Mayor Brandon Johnson floated the idea of a heated tent encampment, but construction was scrapped over the risk of contaminants at the former industrial site. 

The city had instituted a 60-day limit for shelter stays but pushed the first batch of notices off to next week because of the weather. Meanwhile, the city has been heavily criticized for conditions at its shelters and the death of a young boy whose family stayed at one. 

The political fight has also heated up and spread to the suburbs. 

Abbott’s busing operation has been dropping off migrants at all hours in different Chicago area cities without coordination. When the city began fining bus companies and filing lawsuits, Abbott fired back with chartered planes. Johnson had planned a summit for this week with suburban mayors to discuss the problem; it was canceled by the weather. His office didn’t return a request for comment Wednesday. 

“This is an international crisis that requires federal intervention of which local government is subsidizing that work. Never designed to do it, but yet here we are still standing,” Johnson said last week ahead of the storm. 

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker also wrote to Abbott last week asking to suspend buses until the temperatures rise and with many migrants arriving without winter coats or shoes. But Abbott rejected the notion, saying the federal government needs to step up. 

More than 33,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, have arrived in Chicago since 2022. Currently, nearly 15,000 migrants are living in 28 shelters and the city is continually opening more. Many migrants have gone elsewhere or live with family and friends in the area. Chicago, like other cities, has offered bus tickets out of the city. 

The city wound down its much-maligned use of police stations to house migrants, but O’Hare International Airport is still being used, with some asylum-seekers staying for weeks at a time as they await shelter. More than 200 were there Wednesday, according to the city. 

Until the weather turned, the city was keeping migrants aboard eight city buses that were running continuously and parked near a downtown highway in an area designated “the landing zone.” 

Six heated tents are under construction nearby, which the city says will be used for intake and services, such as medical care. It’s unclear if they will also be used for housing. 

Marylin Gonzalez, 34, slept on the buses last week along with her husband and three children, ages 15, 16 and 18. The buses were crowded, with sicknesses spreading quickly. 

Gonzalez described the atmosphere aboard as tense, with many worried about where they would go. She said it made her feel like a prisoner. 

“The children are stressed. People get stressed, they argue, they are already desperate,” she said. “Sometimes we have to sleep sitting up because there is no space to lay down.” 

Outside the buses, many would take up activities, like throwing around a football, to keep warm. 

The landing zone was cleared of people and vehicles on Monday, but by Wednesday morning, the empty warming buses were parked there again, a signal that the city intends to return to using them. The city’s Office of Emergency Management didn’t respond to questions Wednesday about the city’s plans when the weather warms. 

Roughly 50 migrants were staying in the lower level of the Harold Washington Library Center, the city’s flagship location downtown during the cold snap, according to people staying there. Migrants, including those who came in on their own to avoid the cold, were living with others facing homelessness. According to the city’s tally, 5 migrants at the library site were on lists for shelters. An Associated Press reporter was not allowed inside. 

Angel Alberto Chourio, 30, slept there over the weekend, saying he was trying to figure out his next steps. He and a friend arrived from Venezuela last year. The promise of work out of state didn’t pan out, so they came back to Chicago recently. Without any place else to go, they came to the library. 

He said Wednesday that he was nervous about the shelter stay limits and was not on a waiting list for one. 

“We are not used to this. The cold is too much, since it is already below zero,” he said, looking for a silver lining. “At least they give one a chance to continue living.” 
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Washington — A Maine court on Wednesday ordered the state’s top election official to reevaluate a decision to bar former President Donald Trump from the Republican primary ballot after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a related case from Colorado. 

State Superior Court Judge Michaela Murphy found that the Supreme Court’s decision to take the Colorado case “changes everything about the order in which these issues should be decided and by which court.” 

The judge ordered Maine Secretary of State Shanna Bellows, a Democrat, to reassess her decision to bar Trump from the ballot within 30 days after the Supreme Court rules. 

In December, Bellows determined that Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, was ineligible to hold office again under a provision in the U.S. Constitution that bars people who have engaged in insurrection or rebellion from holding office. 

Depending on the sweep of its ruling in the Colorado case, the U.S. Supreme Court could resolve the issue nationwide in the coming weeks, with oral arguments scheduled for February 8. 

Maine and Colorado are so far the only two states to disqualify Trump under the constitutional provision, known as Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Both states have put their decisions on hold while Trump appeals. 

Courts and election officials in several other states have rejected similar ballot challenges to Trump’s candidacy.  
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Capitol Hill — U.S. lawmakers renewed calls Wednesday to pass bipartisan legislation that would restrict American investment in Chinese technology.

“It should come as no surprise that China’s military and surveillance state are exploiting loopholes in U.S. policy to access billions of U.S. investment dollars and expertise. We know that U.S. investment has not democratized China and countries which are controlled by the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] have no power over the applications of their technology. The CCP can direct it to us for military or surveillance purposes,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said at a hearing on the legislation Wednesday. 

The bill – which has support from both conservative organizations and the Biden administration – was not included in the National Defense Authorization Act or NDAA passed late last year. Republican Senator John Cornyn has sponsored companion legislation in the U.S. Senate that passed with more than ninety votes. 

Lawmakers hope it can still be passed individually and signed into law.  

If passed, McCaul said the measure, H.R. 6349, would target “specific technology sectors, like AI [artificial intelligence] and quantum computing, that are empowering China’s military development and surveillance.” 

Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said an executive order issued by the Biden administration last August “that calls for provisions and notification requirements of specific types of American investments in China, or in certain companies that develop or produce semiconductors, quantum computers, and artificial intelligence applications” is an important first step. 

But experts in U.S.-China relations told a House panel more could be done. 

“Congress has an opportunity to build on the initial steps taken by the Trump and Biden administrations to prevent U.S. capital from fueling China’s military and intelligence capabilities. First, Washington should take a sectoral rather than merely an entity-based approach. The Treasury Department has demonstrated since at least 2021 that it is disinterested in using even its existing narrow authorities to limit investment in Chinese military-linked companies. And in fairness to the Treasury Department tackling the problem on a company-by-company basis would be a resource-intensive and gargantuan task,” Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser during the Trump administration, said Wednesday. 

“We still haven’t learned that they will do everything they can to take anything we sell, particularly in the area of electronics and really high tech, and use it for the military. They’ve been doing that for decades. We don’t learn. We think somehow if you trade more, they’ll matriculate from dictatorship to democracy,” Republican Rep. Chris Smith said Wednesday.

The bipartisan push in the U.S. House comes as Senate negotiators continue work on the White House’s $106 billion national security supplemental request that includes funding to combat Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific. Citing a border security crisis, Senate Republicans have sought changes to U.S. immigration law in return for their votes to pass more than $50 billion in assistance to Ukraine that is also part of the Biden administration’s request. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urged lawmakers Wednesday to reach an agreement soon. 

“It’s become quite fashionable in Washington to talk about how we’re not taking competition with China seriously enough,” McConnell said. “Winning this competition means credibly deterring Beijing’s worst impulses, which, for us, means investing in American strength. Outcompeting the PRC [People’s Republic of China] will require greater investments in our military capabilities and in our industrial capacity to produce them. The West cannot be caught unprepared for this challenge. We cannot afford to neglect the lessons of history.” 
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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is expected to soon announce plans to redesignate Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen as specially designated global terrorists, according to two people familiar with the White House decision and a U.S. official.

The move comes as the Houthis have launched dozens of attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. The group says it has attacked the ships in response to Israel’s military operations in Gaza in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

The three people familiar with the decision were not authorized to comment and requested anonymity to discuss the matter ahead of the expected formal announcement.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken delisted the Houthis as both a foreign terrorist organization and as specially designated global terrorists in February 2021 as the administration sought to make it easier to get food imports and humanitarian aid into Yemen.

In its waning days, the Trump administration designated the Houthis a foreign terrorist organization over the strong objections of human rights and humanitarian aid groups.

The foreign terrorist designation barred Americans and people and organizations subject to U.S. jurisdiction from providing “material support” to the Houthis, which the groups said would result in an even greater humanitarian catastrophe than what was already happening in Yemen.

Shortly after the Biden administration took office, Blinken removed the designations in a step that was roundly criticized by conservative lawmakers and others but was intended to keep much-needed food, medicine and other aid flowing to Yemen.

Yemen, on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula bordering the Red Sea, is the poorest country in the Arab world. War and chronic misgovernment have left 24 million Yemenis at risk of hunger and disease as of 2023, and roughly 14 million in acute need of assistance, the United Nations says. About two-thirds of Yemenis live in territory controlled by the Houthis.

While supporters of broad sanctions argue it’s possible to shape any enforcement mechanisms to exempt food and humanitarian aid, aid organizations worry that fears of running afoul of U.S. regulation could scare away shippers, banks and other players vital to Yemen’s commercial food supply. Arid Yemen imports 90% of its food.

“This designation would add another level of uncertainty and threat for Yemenis still caught in one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises,” said Scott Paul, an associate director of Oxfam America. “The Biden administration is playing with fire, and we call on them to avoid this designation immediately and prioritize the lives of Yemenis now.”

The specially designated global terrorists label to be reimposed on the Houthis does not include sanctions for providing “material support,” and it does not come with travel bans that are also imposed with the foreign terrorist organization label, steps intended to help prevent the U.S. move from harming ordinary Yemenis.

Meanwhile, a senior White House official said Tuesday that addressing the ongoing threat by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on commercial vessels in the Red Sea is an “all hands on deck” problem that the U.S. and allies must address together to minimize impact on the global economy.

“How long this goes on and how bad it gets comes down not just to the decisions of the countries in the coalition that took strikes last week,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said during an appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The Iran-backed Houthi group has launched dozens of attacks since November on vessels in the Red Sea, a vital corridor for the world’s shipping traffic, in what they say is an effort to support Palestinians in the war with Israel. U.S. and British forces have responded by carrying out dozens of air and sea strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen since Friday. The attacks by the Houthis have continued.

Linda Thomas Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said last week that 2,000 ships since November have been forced to divert thousands of miles to avoid the Red Sea. Houthi militants have threatened or taken hostage mariners from more than 20 countries.

The Red Sea attacks have already caused significant disruptions to global trade. Oil prices have edged higher in recent days, though Brent crude futures were down slightly in early trading Tuesday.

The U.S. launched a new strike against the Houthis on Tuesday, hitting anti-ship missiles in the third assault on the Iranian-backed group in recent days. The strike came as the Iranian-backed Houthis claimed responsibility for a missile attack against the Malta-flagged bulk carrier Zografia in the Red Sea. No one was injured.

Sullivan said it was critical that countries with influence on Tehran and other Middle East capitals make it clear “that the entire world rejects wholesale the idea that a group like the Houthis can basically hijack the world.”

President Joe Biden’s senior adviser acknowledged that the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea as well as groups allied with Iran carrying out attacks in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen pose concerns that the Israel-Hamas war could escalate even as Israeli officials have indicated a shift in intensity in their military campaign.

“We have to guard against and be vigilant against the possibility that in fact, rather than heading towards de-escalation, we are on a path of escalation that we have to manage,” Sullivan said.

The comments from Sullivan came after Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said during an appearance at the Davos forum that the situation in the Middle East is a “recipe for escalation everywhere.” He said Qatar believes that ending the conflict in Gaza will stop the Houthis and militant groups from launching attacks elsewhere in the region.

Sullivan on Tuesday met with Al Thani as well as Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Iraqi Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, according to the White House.

Iran fired missiles late Monday at what it said were Israeli “spy headquarters” in an upscale neighborhood near the sprawling U.S. Consulate compound in Irbil, the seat of Iraq’s northern semi-autonomous Kurdish region, and at targets linked to the extremist Islamic State group in northern Syria.

Iraq on Tuesday called the attacks, which killed several civilians, a “blatant violation” of Iraq’s sovereignty and recalled its ambassador from Tehran.
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WASHINGTON — Most Republicans at Iowa’s caucus said they felt Donald Trump would be fit for the White House even if he were convicted of a crime, an entrance poll showed on Monday, underscoring the stronghold the former president has on the Republican Party.

About two-thirds of caucus-goers also said they did not believe Democratic President Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, according to the poll.

Following are highlights from the Edison Research poll based on interviews with 1,628 Iowa Republicans.

66% said they did not think Biden legitimately won the presidency in 2020.
65% said they decided who to support in the presidential nomination contest before this month.
65% said Trump would still be fit to be president if he were convicted of a crime. 31% said he would be unfit if convicted.
61% said they favor a federal law that would ban abortions nationwide.
53% of white caucus-goers who considered themselves evangelical or born-again Christians supported Trump, while 27% backed DeSantis.
46% of voters said they considered themselves part of the MAGA movement, a reference to Trump's Make America Great Again slogan. 50% said they were not part of that movement.
Trump led Haley and DeSantis by double digits among men and women alike. But among college graduates Trump was preferred by about 37% of caucus-goers, compared to 28% for Haley and 26% for DeSantis.
38% percent of caucus-goers said the economy was the issue that mattered most in deciding who to vote for on Monday, compared to 34% who cited immigration, while the rest cited foreign policy or abortion.
14% said the most important quality a Republican presidential nominee should have is the ability to beat Biden, compared to 41% who said shared values mattered most.

Edison Research conducted the poll on behalf of the National Election Pool, a consortium of news organizations including Reuters.

 
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washington — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was released from the hospital on Monday, after spending two weeks there to treat complications from surgery for prostate cancer he kept secret from senior Biden administration leaders and staff for weeks.

Austin will work from home as he recovers, and his doctors said he “progressed well throughout his stay and his strength is rebounding.” They said in a statement the cancer was treated early and his prognosis is “excellent.”

In a statement, Austin expressed thanks to the medical staff and said that “as I continue to recuperate and perform my duties from home, I’m eager to fully recover and return as quickly as possible to the Pentagon.”

Austin, 70, was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on December 22 and underwent surgery to treat the cancer, which was detected earlier in the month during a routine screening. He developed an infection a week later and was hospitalized Jan. 1 and admitted to intensive care.

Dr. John Maddox, the trauma medical director, and Dr. Gregory Chesnut, the director of the Center for Prostate Disease Research at Walter Reed, said that during Austin’s hospitalization he underwent medical tests and was treated for lingering leg pain. They said he has physical therapy to do but there are no plans for further cancer treatment other than regular checks.

President Joe Biden and senior administration officials were not told about Austin’s hospitalization until January 4, and Austin kept the cancer diagnosis secret until January 9. Biden has said Austin’s failure to tell him about the hospitalization was a lapse in judgment, but the Democratic president insists he still has confidence in his Pentagon chief.

During Austin’s time at Walter Reed, the U.S. launched a series of military strikes late last week on the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, targeting dozens of locations linked to their campaign of assaults on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Working from his hospital bed, Austin juggled calls with senior military leaders, including General Erik Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, and White House meetings to review, order and ultimately watch the strikes unfold over secure video.

The lack of transparency about Austin’s hospitalization, however, has triggered administration and Defense Department reviews on the procedures for notifying the White House and others if a Cabinet member must transfer decision-making authorities to a deputy, as Austin did during his initial surgery and a portion of his latest hospital stay. And the White House chief of staff ordered Cabinet members to notify his office if they ever can’t perform their duties.

Austin’s secrecy also drew criticism from Congress members on both sides of the political aisle, and Representative Mike Rogers, an Alabama Republican who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he has opened a formal inquiry into the matter. Others openly called for Austin to resign, but the White House has said the Pentagon chief’s job is safe.

It is still unclear when Austin will return to his office in the Pentagon or how his cancer treatment will affect his job, travel and other public engagements going forward. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks has been taking on some of his day-to-day duties as he recovers.
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NEW YORK — Sixty years ago, the U.S. surgeon general released a report that settled a longstanding public debate about the dangers of cigarettes and led to huge changes in smoking in America.  

Today, some public health experts say a similar report could help clear the air about vaping.  

Many U.S. adults believe nicotine vaping is as harmful as — or more dangerous than — cigarette smoking. That’s wrong. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and most scientists agree that, based on available evidence, electronic cigarettes are far less dangerous than traditional cigarettes.  

But that doesn’t mean e-cigarettes are harmless either. And public health experts disagree about exactly how harmful, or helpful, the devices are. Clarifying information is urgently needed, said Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University.  

“There have been so many confusing messages about vaping,” Gostin said. “A surgeon general’s report could clear that all up.”  

One major obstacle: E-cigarettes haven’t been around long enough for scientists to see if vapers develop problems like lung cancer and heart disease.  

“There’s a remarkable lack of evidence,” said Dr. Kelly Henning, who leads the public health program at Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Smoking and Vaping

Cigarette smoking has long been described as the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the annual toll at 480,000 lives. That count should start to fall around 2030, according to a study published last year by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, thanks in part to a decline in smoking rates that began in the 1960s.  

Back then, ashtrays were everywhere and more than 42% of U.S. adults smoked.  

On Jan. 11, 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry released an authoritative report that said smoking causes illness and death — and the government should do something about it. The report is considered a watershed moment: In the decades that followed, warning labels were put on cigarette packs, cigarette commercials were banned, governments raised tobacco taxes and new restrictions were placed on where people could light up.  

By 2022, the adult smoking rate was 11%.  

Some experts believe e-cigarettes deserve some of the credit. The devices were billed as a way to help smokers quit, and the FDA has authorized a handful of e-cigarettes as less-harmful alternatives for adult smokers.  

Vaping’s popularity exploded in the 2010s, among both adults but and teens. In 2014, e-cigarettes surpassed combustible cigarettes as the tobacco product that youth used the most. By 2019, 28% of high schoolers were vaping.

U.S. health officials sounded alarms, fearing that kids hooked on nicotine would rediscover cigarettes. That hasn’t happened. Last year, the high school smoking rate was less than 2% — far lower than the 35% rate seen about 25 years ago.

“That’s a great public health triumph. It’s an almost unbelievable one,” said Kenneth Warner, who studies tobacco-control policies at the University of Michigan.

“If it weren’t for e-cigarettes, I think we would be hearing the public health community shouting at the top of their lungs about the success of getting kids not to smoke,” he said.

Vaping’s Benefits and Harms

Cigarettes have been called the deadliest consumer product ever invented. Their smoke contains thousands of chemicals, at least 69 of which can cause cancer. 

The vapor from e-cigarettes has been estimated to contain far fewer chemicals, and fewer carcinogens. Some toxic substances are present in both, but show up in much lower concentrations in e-cigarette vapor than in cigarette smoke.

Studies have shown that smokers who completely switch to vaping have better lung function and see other health improvements.

“I would much rather see someone vaping than smoking a Marlboro. There is no question in my mind that vaping is safer,” said Donald Shopland, who was a clerk for the committee that generated the 1964 report and is co-author of a forthcoming book on it.

But what about the dangers to people who have never smoked?

There have been 100 to 200 studies looking at vaping, and they are a mixed bag, said Dr. Neal Benowitz, of the University of California, San Francisco, a leading academic voice on nicotine and tobacco addiction. The studies used varying techniques, and many were limited in their ability to separate the effects of vaping from former cigarettes smoking, he said.

“If you look at the research, it’s all over the map,” Warner said.

Studies have detected bronchitis symptoms and aggravation of asthma in young people who vape. Research also indicates vaping also can affect the cells that line the blood vessels and heart, leading to looks for a link to heart disease. Perhaps the most cited concern is nicotine, the stimulant that makes cigarettes and vapes addictive.

Animal studies suggest nicotine exposure in adolescents can affect development of the area of the brain responsible for attention, learning and impulse control. Some research in people suggests a link between vaping and ADHD symptoms, depression and feelings of stress. But experts say that the research is very limited and more work needs to be done.

Meanwhile, there’s not even a clear scientific consensus that vaping is an effective way to quit smoking, with different studies coming up with different conclusions.

Clearing the Air

Last month, the World Health Organization raised alarms about the rapidly growing global markets for electronic cigarettes, noting they come in thousands of flavors that attract young people.

In 2016, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said efforts were needed to prevent and reduce e-cigarette use by children and young adults, saying nicotine in any form is unsafe for kids.

About four months before the report’s release, the FDA began taking steps to regulate e-cigarettes, believing they would benefit smokers.

The agency has authorized several e-cigarettes, but it has refused more than 1 million product marketing applications. Critics say the FDA has been unfair and inconsistent in regulation of products.

Meanwhile, the number of different e-cigarette devices sold in the U.S. has boomed, due largely to disposables imported from China that come in fruit and candy flavors. But vaping by youths has recently been falling: Last year, 10% of high school students surveyed said they had used e-cigarettes in the previous month, down from 14% the year before.

Why the decline? “It’s hard to say what’s working,” said Steven Kelder, a University of Texas researcher.

He mentioned a 2019 outbreak of hospitalizations and deaths among people who were vaping products with THC, the chemical that gives marijuana its high.

The illnesses were traced to a thickening agent used in black market vape cartridges, a substance not used in commercial nicotine e-cigarettes. But it may be a reason many Americans think of e-cigarettes as unsafe, Kelder said.

Sherri Mayfield, a 47-year-old postal worker, remembers the 2019 outbreak and reports of rapid illnesses and deaths in youths. Vaping “absolutely” needs to be studied more, Mayfield said last week while on a cigarette break in New York with some co-workers.

“Cigarettes aren’t safe” but at least it can take them decades to destroy your health, she said.

The surgeon general’s office said in a statement that the 1964 report “catalyzed a 60-year movement to address the harmful effects of smoking” and suggested similar action was needed to address youth vaping.

Murthy’s website, however, currently lists neither vaping nor smoking as a priority issue.
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