In 1993, the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the World Health Organization convened a working group to develop a global strategy for the management and prevention of asthma to combat the growing prevalence of this severe chronic disease. The strategy was subsequently published as the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) guidelines.*Now, the Asthma Insights and Reality in Europe (AIRE) study**has demonstrated that the asthma management goals contained in the GINA guidelines are not being met in Western Europe.1Moreover, the study showed that patients' perceptions of their asthma control conflict with their actual asthma control.