A school-based education program sponsored by electronic cigarette maker Juul Labs was abandoned almost as soon as it was proposed, a company spokesperson confirmed.

The vaping prevention education program was widely criticized by anti-tobacco advocates and several public officials, including Maura Healy, the attorney general of Massachusetts.

Healy, whose office is investigating internet sales of Juul and other e-cigarettes to minors, cited data from the U.S. Surgeon General and CDC suggesting that previous industry-sponsored school-based anti-tobacco programs were at best ineffective, and at worst increased teens' propensity to start smoking.

Jessica Liu and Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD, of Stanford University in Stanford, California, wrote in the Journal of Adolescent Health that Juul Labs' abandoned program followed the playbook of earlier anti-smoking initiatives conceived by the tobacco industry and that "they indeed do more harm than good to youth smoking."

"The main findings on what the industry-sponsored programs have done in the past closely parallel Juul Labs' current situation," Liu and Halpern-Felsher wrote.

"Tobacco companies, and that includes companies marketing e-cigarettes, should not be doing school-based prevention," Halpern-Felsher told MedPage Today.

In an email exchange with MedPage Today, a Juul Labs spokesperson said the school-based curriculum guide "was a short-lived initiative designed to provide educators with current information on vaping products in general to supplement existing tobacco prevention education."

The spokesperson said company representatives reached out to school districts to "offer science-based resources on vaping that were absent from existing anti-tobacco materials."

"As of mid-May and shortly after this initial outreach, we stopped distribution in response to feedback from those who thought our efforts were being misunderstood," the spokesperson said.

The company also briefly offered $10,000 to schools to pay for the implementation of anti-vaping education efforts.

"The stipends were intended to cover the additional costs associated with operational expenses, resources, or training/material for teachers for any vaping intervention or prevention program the school or district chose to employ," the spokesperson said, adding that fewer than 10 schools requested the stipends.

Juul Labs has pledged to spend $30 million over the next 3 years to be used for "independent research, youth and parent education, and community engagement," according to company's website.

Halpern-Felsher, who co-authored a JAMA Network Open paper last week on high school students' attitudes and behaviors involving e-cigarettes, said she does not perceive the initiative to be a good faith effort, given that the company is still engaging in marketing practices known to appeal to youth, such as fruit- and dessert-flavored products.

In September, the FDA announced that it had given Juul Labs and four other e-cigarette companies 60 days to come up with plans for limiting teen access to the products, as part of a larger initiative aimed at curbing youth use.