If you want a truly frustrating job in public health, try getting people to stop smoking. Even when researchers combine counseling and encouragement with nicotine patches and gum, few smokers quit. Recently, though, experimenters in Italy had more success by doing less. A team led by Riccardo Polosa of the University of Catania recruited 40 hard-core smokers ones who had turned down a free spot in a smoking-cessation program and simply gave them a gadget already available in stores for $50. This electronic cigarette, or e-cigarette, contains a small reservoir of liquid nicotine solution that is vaporized to form an aerosol mist.
But there s a powerful group working against this innovation and it s not Big Tobacco. It s a coalition of government officials and antismoking groups who have been warning about the dangers of e-cigarettes and trying to ban their sale.