Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Geller, thank you very much for coming and presenting here today. I very much welcomed your comments at the start.
This may not be a fair question to put to you in your role at Health Canada. It's very true that in fact the manufacturer of any product, before it is approved by Health Canada, would have to undertake their own scientific studies. I'm concerned more about the level of knowledge and scientific evidence available out there, generally speaking.
On the one hand, all lay people hear that the e-cigarette may help people end their addiction to smoking, and that it maintains some of the physical attributes of that addiction and allows them to wean themselves off nicotine, much like the patch, where you would start off with, perhaps, a higher content of nicotine and then eventually lower the content, and hopefully, eliminate all nicotine that you are consuming.
Others say it's quite the opposite, that maybe e-cigarettes are a gateway, that you start using e-cigarettes, perhaps just the ones with glycerine, the ones that have no nicotine, and then ramp your way up, and then start a fulsome addiction to cigarette smoking.
Have you at Health Canada reviewed the scientific literature available? On balance, which side do you think that scientific literature favours?