IVAQS Project Briefing

[kristin]

I tend to disagree on the "wise decision". That research could have contributed to CASAA's ability to fight the bans.

Which is why CASAA collected donations from its members a few months ago and forwarded the donations to CHANGE. However, while the study has yet to be completed, CASAA is still faced with fighting bans and addressing tobacco control and smokeless policies NOW. People were donating to IVAQS through CASAA, but not to CASAA, so CASAA's resources were being diverted to IVAQS donations, even though CASAA needed the funds more than ever. But we didn't want to keep people from donating to IVAQS, so while we took the IVAQS donation button off casaa.org, we kept the info on there and directed people who wanted to donate just to IVAQS to the IVAQS site.

Additionally, the controversy was beginning to swirl around whether or not IVAQS was ever going to be considered a respected and valid study and questions of impropriety. CASAA did not have any first-hand involvement in IVAQS, had no control of it, had no idea if it was being done properly and no experts to determine it and was seeing all of its funding getting diverted to it. We could not, in good conscience, comment about the study one way or another, because we were just not privy to the information nor did we have researchers on our board to make that determination.

Finally, it made no sense to pour efforts and funding into such a big "maybe" when there were other expenses and actions needed elsewhere NOW. However, CASAA still sees the need for such a study and didn't want to appear to be discrediting IVAQS and hamper their efforts (CASAA would love to have a professional, credible, scientific study to point to in our our efforts to stop bans and poor legislation) so CASAA decided to be neutral and pull back from raising funds or being directly involved in ALL research projects and put the focus and funds back on the advocacy and education mission.

Hopefully the CASAA choice was not made because of belief the facts would be detrimental to their efforts. For me, I prefer knowing that I am not harming others over forcing harm upon others so that I might vape without public ban.

Absolutely not. Remember that CASAA is NOT an e-cigarette organization. CASAA is a tobacco harm reduction organization. We do not promote any ONE specific method of harm reduction, we promote what works for smokers to quit smoking and reduce their health risks. CASAA does not exist to promote or protect ANY industry. If something was just as dangerous as smoking, we would not promote it - including but not limited to e-cigarettes. Our mission is to get the truth and science-based facts out to the public, not conjecture and junk science.

When it is said "decided to set aside the pursuit of any research efforts" that suggests to me facts are not important - it is all politics no matter what the facts are. Pursuit of research by CASSAA is not limited to just money and donations - it might be "encouragement". "Set aside the pursuit of any research" sounds of discouragement for facts.

Completely and absolutely way off base. Read other comments above. "Any research efforts" means doing them or financing them ourselves. We continue to encourage and support researchers to do unbiased, professional, peer-reviewed studies. This is the statement CASAA released regarding our research policy:

In late 2010, CASAA's board of directors discussed CASAA's mission in relation to the current and future involvement in smokeless and e-cigarette research and studies and concluded that CASAA does not have the funding nor the staff to endorse, supervise and/or fund any ongoing research. At that time, the Board agreed to discontinue fundraising for research projects and instead continue to direct its efforts and funding toward the continued education of the public, media and legislators about tobacco harm reduction; provide public access to completed research and studies; and to continue the fight to keep smokeless alternatives available, effective and affordable.

To that end, CASAA forwarded any donations contributed by its members to the studies for which they were intended and voted not to do any more fundraising exclusively for research. Additionally, because CASAA has no first-hand involvement with any research or studies, we are unable to comment on the current progress, fundraising, validity or administration of any ongoing studies.

CASAA does and always will encourage the use of scientific and unbiased research to provide the public with the truth about the safety of e-cigarettes for both the user and bystanders.