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 […]