Physician assisted suicide has been the subject of most of the controversy surrounding euthanasia in recent years. Physician assisted suicide differs from active euthanasia because the patient ends his own life. The physician only supplies the patient with the information and/or the means to commit the final act. The means provided by the doctor is usually a lethal dose of sleeping pills or carbon monoxide gas. The issue of physician assisted suicide was brought to the foreground by Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Kevorkian's methods included the use of a "suicide machine" triggered by the patient to inject lethal doses of medicine into the body. Physician assisted suicide is also called "voluntary passive euthanasia" (VPE), although some people use the verb "to kevork" to describe the action, because of its close association with Dr. Kevorkian.