I think one of the problems we're facing at the moment is that if you deal with a case of emphysema or a case of throat cancer, and the patient has tried five, six, seven times to stop smoking with all the available tools that exist at the moment and hasn't been able to do so—and this is the sort of clientele we have—then we could suggest to them, “Why don't you try the electronic cigarettes?” They will say, “Well, doctor, why should I use the electronic cigarette? It is as harmful as the tobacco cigarettes.” This is what is publicized; this is the common thinking in the population, so it's very difficult.
As a matter of fact, in the last few years people were coming to the clinic who had already bought their electronic cigarettes but hadn't started using them because of this confusion that was existing in their minds, and they would ask, what you do you think?
Of course, this does not prevent us from suggesting to them the approved pharmacotherapy. I mean, you don't treat hypertension with one drug; you treat hypertension with various drugs and treat diabetes with various drugs. Why don't we treat tobacco addiction with various means? The message believed by half the population at the moment—and I feel that this is very sad, and it's true also in Europe and in Great Britain—is that electronic cigarettes are as harmful as tobacco cigarettes. It's very unfortunate.