I'm hoping that the study is being conducted, at the very least, to find truths. I am not however, extremely optimistic that this is the case at this point.
My reason for saying that, is that the project administrator is one Eric Soule. Googling this person led me to this article, where Mr. Soule was a member of a team that attended a vape convention, to surreptitiously measure the air quality in the presence of a large number of vapers by sneaking in and concealing air monitoring equipment. While I will link to the article at the end of this, I find this particular paragraph especially troubling:
"
The researchers misleadingly characterized the droplets they observed as PM2.5 — which refers to particles (i.e., tiny solid bits) of size less than 2.5 microns, which are believed to cause health risk independent of their chemistry due to their size — and likened them to smoke (which is the dominant source of real PM2.5). As has been noted numerous times by quite a few commentators since Igor Burstyn and I
pointed it out more than two years ago, e-cigarettes do not produce particles, they produce droplets (i.e., tiny liquid bits), which have entirely different health implications. There is no reason to believe that droplet size matters. Some instruments cannot tell the difference between particles and droplets, but this does not make them the same. I have explained this in easily-understood terms several times; I recommend
this one, and see also
here. (Also note that the health claims about actual PM2.5 are rather more tenuous than is usually portrayed in public health discussions, as I pointed out in the first of those three links, but that does not matter since this is not about actual PM2.5.)
The authors then go further and call for policy actions which could not possibly have been supported by
any result this research could have produced. In particular, in spite of having generated no information about health risks, and in spite of having studied only an extreme environment which tells us nothing about normal settings, their conclusion statement demanded, “establishing policies that prohibit ECIG [sic] use anywhere combustible cigarette use is prohibited.” "
The article itself:
Serious ethical concerns about public health research conduct; the case of vape convention air quality measurement
I will continue to participate in the study. They will surely find enough to fill their quota either way, and at least I am forearmed with the above information, to look for potentially misleading or loaded questions that could be used to our detriment.
Mr. Kershaw,
@SmokeyJoe have you personally, or someone that you consider competent to do so, vetted this study, the administrators, and the purpose?
