I agree, wholeheartedly. I do believe that those doctors who see results directly from the patients are probably more likely to recommend e-cigs to patients, but then probably not until pharmaceutical treatments are tried and proven ineffective. It's just my cynical side that feels that the BP may have influence over the medical profession (conspiracy theory perhaps), and it could take conclusive clinical testing to get them to publicly endorse e-cigs.
I hope I'm wrong and just being a cynical and paranoid old coot.
Actually, I think that recommending e-cigarettes after several quitting attempts have failed the smoker is perfectly justifiable. The failed attempts serve to prove that the alternative to e-cigs is to CONTINUE SMOKING, not to "quit altogether" as the ANTZ try to claim.
In fact, in the article that I co-authored with Dr. Palosa and his staff, that is the position that we took.
Caponnetto P, Keller E, Bruno CM, Polosa R. Handling relapse in smoking cessation: strategies and recommendations. Intern Emerg Med. 2012 Oct 7. [Epub ahead of print] Handling relapse in smoking cessation: stra... [Intern Emerg Med. 2012] - PubMed - NCBI
Link to full text: http://download.springer.com/static...082_c2edb30b96b016ca61a7e31b78de9762&ext=.pdf
Edit: For some reason the above link comes up with an error. Try going to this page and clicking on the button to download PDF. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11739-012-0864-z
Edit: A good reason NOT to wait for an FDA stamp of approval of e-cigs as a "modified risk" tobacco product is that FDA has structured the process to take as much time and money as getting a pharmaceutical product approved. Each day that a smoker continues to inhale smoke, more damage to lungs and cardiovascular systems is occurring. In consideration of that, the conservative approach is to switch smokers to ANYTHING that would serve as an acceptable substitute for smoking.
Waiting for irrefutable proof of safety and efficacy is akin to finding a treatment for HIV infection and telling folks, "We don't want to endanger your safety by allowing you to take this treatment. Just cross your fingers and hope that your infection doesn't blossom into full-blown AIDS before the treatment is approved."
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