Skip to comments.
The Asthma Attack
NRO ^
| August 10, 2004
| Rich Lowry
Posted on 08/10/2004 12:25:39 PM PDT by neverdem
 |
|
|
|
August 10, 2004, 8:32 a.m.
The Asthma Attack
Poisonous politics.
Is George W. Bush against black children breathing? In the current political environment, no charge against President Bush is too poisonous or preposterous to make, including this one.
In promoting his new book, which basically accuses Bush of being a fascist, environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has loosed this assault: "One out of every four black children in New York now has asthma. Those asthma attacks are triggered by pollution from power plants, which George Bush let off the hook." So potent is the notion of Bush denying children their very breath that John Kerry repeated the charge by implication in his speech at the Democratic Convention: "What does it mean when 25 percent of children in Harlem have asthma because of air pollution? America can do better, and help is on the way."
This ranks among the most transparently nonsensical charges against the president. Start with the fact that air pollution has been declining in recent years, as it has been for decades. Name your pollutant, it's been dropping: particulate matter, ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, whatever. Cleaner air — the result of regulation and improved technologies — should be hailed by environmentalists as one of their signature accomplishments. Instead, they pretend it doesn't exist.
In light of this, the question we should be asking is: Why is declining air pollution associated with increased rates of asthma? Because the nation is indeed in an asthma epidemic. Rates of asthma — a chronic inflammatory disease of the lungs — have more than doubled in the past 20 years. Cases have gone from 6.8 million in 1980 to 17.3 million in 1999. There is just very little evidence that air pollution, let alone George Bush, is causing anyone to get the condition.
Environmentalists point to a study in California showing that kids who played three or more team sports — a small percentage of the total sample — in high-ozone areas were more likely to get asthma than similar kids in lower ozone areas. What environmentalists fail to mention is that kids overall were 30 percent less likely to get asthma in the high ozone areas than in the low ozone areas. American Enterprise Institute expert Joel Schwartz has crunched the California numbers and found that the asthma rate in many communities with lots of air pollution is lower than in communities with little pollution — in other words, there is no consistent association of pollution with increased asthma rates.
Make no mistake: High rates of pollution can impair lung function. There is some indication that air pollution in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s did just that. But the United States is now well below those highs, and most of the United States has always been below those old Southern California levels. Even massive reductions in air pollution from current levels would probably have little effect. Schwartz points to an environmentalist-sponsored study that concluded that a reduction in power-plant emissions of 75 percent would reduce hospital admissions for serious respiratory or cardiovascular conditions by a mere 0.2 percent to 0.6 percent.
It's a mystery why asthma rates have soared. Maybe kids spend more time indoors in houses that, since the energy crisis of the 1970s, are efficiently sealed off from outside air, and so trap irritants like dust mites, cockroach droppings and pet dander. Maybe increasing obesity and declining physical activity play roles. Some researchers have even pointed to the declining use of aspirin or the generally cleaner, less infectious world kids live in today, which might mean that their immune systems overreact to things like dust.
Given all of this, Kerry's implied pledge to end the asthma epidemic stands as one of the emptiest political promises of all time. Is he going to launch a crusade against pet dander if that's proven a major cause of the epidemic? But for Bush critics, all medical uncertainties and research imponderables disappear before their one all-purpose epidemiological insight: It is George Bush's fault.
— Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.
(c)2003 King Features Syndicate
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: airpollution; asthma; pollution
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-20, 21-29 next last
1
posted on
08/10/2004 12:25:41 PM PDT
by
neverdem
To: fourdeuce82d; El Gato; JudyB1938; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Robert A. Cook, PE; lepton; LadyDoc; ...
2
posted on
08/10/2004 12:27:16 PM PDT
by
neverdem
(Xin loi min oi)
To: neverdem
Maybe kids spend more time indoors in houses that, since the energy crisis of the 1970s, are efficiently sealed off from outside air, and so trap irritants like dust mites, cockroach droppings and pet dander.
BINGO!
3
posted on
08/10/2004 12:32:22 PM PDT
by
kaktuskid
To: neverdem
I am certain there is a Federal program that net **subsidizes** folks who claim to have asthma.
Why?
Out of the blue, during the 90s, posters/ads went up all over NYC mass transit encouraging people (all the photos were of blacks) to be tested for the ailment.
The agitprop has been consistent, and clearly well-funded.
OBVIOUSLY sick folks should be certain to attend to their ailments, but the specific targeting of the disease and the cohort is highly suspicious.
4
posted on
08/10/2004 12:34:37 PM PDT
by
NativeNewYorker
(Don't blame me. I voted for Sharpton.)
To: neverdem
Was it Kerry who claimed that he had asthma years ago and backed down when Rush caught him in that lie?
5
posted on
08/10/2004 12:35:33 PM PDT
by
Grampa Dave
(Has the Franchurian Dork candidate, le Jacquestrap Kerri ever not lied to Americans!")
To: neverdem
Further, if you look at the regulation Bush wanted changed, you will find that the change would improve air quality and had as a core requirement that pollution levels would not increase. As I understood it, previous regs required a power plant to upgrade
all of their equipment if making any modifications at all. The result, plants would make no efficency improvements
at all because the cost would mean a tremendous investment. By that time, any plant that could justify the cost had made the improvements. Result, stalement. Under the proposed regs, a plant could install new equipment thereby increasing efficiency while improving air quality. They could only do so if the change did not increase their pollution output.
* Therefore, to follow Kennedy's charges, it was the
DemocRATs that encouraged the existing pollution levels to remain the same; Bush tried to improve things!
*To be fair, I guess you could say that efficiency improvements might happen that did not improve the pollution index BUT would reduce fuel consumption thereby meeting another national goal and also, by definition, would reduce CO2 emissions thereby being Kyoto-friendlyTM
6
posted on
08/10/2004 12:37:12 PM PDT
by
NonValueAdded
(When it came to Intelligence, Kerry was absent)
To: neverdem
One thing forgotten about asthma. I'll have to say this very loud over the leftist media.
ASTHMA IS INHERITED
There. I have it. Several aunts uncles and cousins have it. My grandma had it. We all lived in different areas.
It's genetic.
7
posted on
08/10/2004 12:38:25 PM PDT
by
Dan from Michigan
("When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry." - Swift Boat Veterans for Truth)
To: neverdem
Did you hear about increased incidence of asthma among children who as infants and toddlers were given multivitamins?
8
posted on
08/10/2004 12:40:06 PM PDT
by
aruanan
To: neverdem
I'm not saying pollution has nothing to do with asthma, but I'll bet the following three things have as much to do with so many kids having asthma as anything else:
1. More kids survive today. The new asthma medicines are fantastic and great strides have been made treating premature infants. Twenty years ago, a lot of severe asthmatics would have died in infancy or from pneumonia as children.
2. City kids are told to stay inside and watch TV or play video games. Their mothers figure they'd rather have fat kids than pregnant, drop-out, drug addicted kids. It used to be if you lived in the city your mother would tell you to go outside. Those days are gone.
3. The improved medications result in more kids being diagnosed with asthma. Twenty or thirty years ago kids who wheezed occasionally when they got a cold were said to be prone to bronchitis - they had to stay in bed with the vaporizer going til they got better. The new drugs give these same types of kids much easier winters, but now they get the asthmatic label.
To: kaktuskid
irritants like dust mites, cockroach droppings and pet dander. I read a report, I think on this forum some time back, that was about cockroach infestations causing asthma in children.
I'm pretty sure you have found the answer.
10
posted on
08/10/2004 1:33:22 PM PDT
by
capt. norm
(Rap is to music what the Etch-A-Sketch is to art.)
To: old and tired
First of all if cases of Asthma ARE increased in Harlem (andI would have to see some peer-reviewed studies that bore that out and showed when they ramped up) of course Robert Kennedy took into consideration the attack on the World Trade Center and the fact the city was covered in toxins as a result.
Over two years after the attacks, when I visited there you could still see workers cleaning the brick buildings from caked-on soot from that horrible day. You would see what looked like insulation laying alongside the curbs and gutters, almost as if as they wash off the sidewalks, yet another layer of this stuff would be washed into the streets...
IMHO Robert Kennedy really showed his ignorance to place blame for this directly at Bush's doorstep. Heck, when we moved to the desert and CLEAN air, my husbands asthma returned. He'd not been bothered for many a year when we lived in the smog basin called Southern California, but in the clear air of the Arizona desert, he is.
In addition: Buildings in the Harlem district of NYC are old and were built before regulations against asbestos and lead paint. As these old buildings are vacating and being rehabilitated (this is becoming the next "it" place to move in NYC since Clinton located there) they are removing the toxins in these buildings... then you have the types of heating systems, they are old! They get dusty... I could go on and on, but surely Robert Kennedy doesn't think we should pay to move these kids out of Harlem and tear down these old buildings? Perhaps, the Kennedy family could start a refurbishment program with some of their money! instead of expecting tax payers to bare the costs...
And...if he's so concerned about alternative energy sources for automobiles (while he and people like him fly around in private jets burning more fuel than I'll burn in a lifetime) these "wealthy" individuals should start funding research with all this money they feel they shouldn't be allowed to keep (from their tax cut).
To: capt. norm
Why More Black Kids Have Asthma:
http://www.respiratoryreviews.com/jul00/rr_jul00_asthmakids.html
Two Quotes:
The researchers did not find racial differences when testing for sensitization to major indoor allergens, including cockroaches. However, they did find that black children were more likely than white children to be sensitized to ragweed and grass. These findings support the hypothesis that black children may be predisposed to asthma.
Poverty isn't the only reason black children have greater asthma morbidity and mortality than white children do. Physiologic differences--specifically, reduced lung function and higher immunoglobulin E (IgE) levels--may contribute to increased asthma severity in black children.
That was the finding of researchers who studied 569 children age 6 to 8 years, 14% of whom were black.[1] "Our study was unique because the African American children were from a middle class suburban area," lead author Christine Joseph, PhD, told RESPIRATORY REVIEWS. Black children in previous pediatric asthma studies typically came from poor urban areas.
Where did Robert Kennedy obtain his research??
To: neverdem
The vast increase in asthma in all sectors of the US population is probably attributable to the aggressive control of childhood lung infections, the overly tightly sealed homes most people now live in and the overall reduction in the amount of true nuturing children get early on since most Moms now work.
13
posted on
08/10/2004 1:57:14 PM PDT
by
GOP_1900AD
(Stomping on "PC," destroying the Left, and smoking out faux "conservatives" - Right makes right!)
To: capt. norm
Plus ... This stuff all boils down to less housecleaning being done than was the case 20 or 30 years ago. Fewer stay at home Moms = dirtier houses.
14
posted on
08/10/2004 1:59:58 PM PDT
by
GOP_1900AD
(Stomping on "PC," destroying the Left, and smoking out faux "conservatives" - Right makes right!)
To: neverdem
If you listen to Kerry's speech he says "children in Harlem suffer frorm HAIR pollution." I guess he was referring to Al Sharpton's uncontrollable urge to use Aqua Net on his 'do.
To: Grampa Dave
I don't know about Rush, but here's something on Kerry and asthma.
Kerry Implied He Had Developed Asthma Since He Began Living In Washington, DC And Had Started Using An Inhaler As A Result. “Kerry’s speech was preceded by a roundtable discussion in which 14 Roxbury residents and area political activists discussed a variety of health problems they attributed to the concentration of pollution sources in their neighborhood. Klare Allen of Roxbury held up a map showing that eight of the city’s nine trash-transfer stations are in the neighborhood. Many of the parents and some of the children in the group complained of asthma. ‘Until I went to Washington, I had never had asthma in my life,’ Kerry said in response. He said pollution in the city has prompted him to use an inhaler like those used by some of Roxbury residents.” (Glen Johnson, “Kerry May Make GOP Wealth A Campaign Issue,” The Boston Globe, 4/23/03)
Kerry Later Explained The Inhaler Was For Common Springtime Allergies And He Hadn’t “Used It In Months.” “In an interview afterward, Kerry clarified his remark by explaining that he used an Albuterol inhaler for common springtime allergies, but his condition is not serious enough to limit his physical activity. ‘I rarely use it; I haven’t used it in months,’ he said.” (Glen Johnson, “Kerry May Make GOP Wealth A Campaign Issue,” The Boston Globe, 4/23/03)
here, almost halfway down
16
posted on
08/10/2004 2:59:58 PM PDT
by
neverdem
(Xin loi min oi)
To: Dan from Michigan; All
Here's the 3997 citations you get when you do a search on asthma AND heredity at PubMed:
 About Entrez
Text Version
Entrez PubMed
Overview
Help | FAQ
Tutorial
New/Noteworthy
E-Utilities
PubMed Services
Journals Database
MeSH Database
Single Citation Matcher
Batch Citation Matcher
Clinical Queries
LinkOut
Cubby
Related Resources
Order Documents
NLM Gateway
TOXNET
Consumer Health
Clinical Alerts
ClinicalTrials.gov
PubMed Central
|
 |
| 1: |
Salamanca-Gomez F. |
Related Articles, |
 |
[A new susceptibility locus for asthma]
Gac Med Mex. 2004 May-Jun;140(3):355-6. Spanish. No abstract available.
PMID: 15259351 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] |
| 2: |
Ulevitch RJ. |
Related Articles, |
|
Therapeutics targeting the innate immune system.
Nat Rev Immunol. 2004 Jul;4(7):512-20. Review. No abstract available.
PMID: 15229470 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] |
| 5: |
Pylkkanen L, Gullsten H, Majuri ML, Andersson U, Vanhala E, Maatta J, Meklin T, Hirvonen MR, Alenius H, Savolainen K. |
Related Articles, |
 |
Exposure to Aspergillus fumigatus spores induces chemokine expression in mouse macrophages.
Toxicology. 2004 Aug 5;200(2-3):255-63.
PMID: 15212821 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] |
| 6: |
Hsu CH, Lin SS, Liu FL, Su WC, Yeh SD. |
Related Articles, |
|
Oral administration of a mite allergen expressed by zucchini yellow mosaic virus in cucurbit species downregulates allergen-induced airway inflammation and IgE synthesis.
J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2004 Jun;113(6):1079-85.
PMID: 15208588 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] |
| 10: |
Lee DK. |
Related Articles, |
|
Beta2-adrenoceptor genotypes and diplotypes at positions 16 and 27 in allergic rhinitis and asthma.
Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2004 May;92(5):580. No abstract available.
PMID: 15191029 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] |
| 16: |
Jones MG, Nielsen J, Welch J, Harris J, Welinder H, Bensryd I, Skerfving S, Welsh K, Venables KM, Taylor AN. |
Related Articles, |
|
Association of HLA-DQ5 and HLA-DR1 with sensitization to organic acid anhydrides.
Clin Exp Allergy. 2004 May;34(5):812-6.
PMID: 15144476 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] |
| 18: |
Jongepier H, Boezen HM, Dijkstra A, Howard TD, Vonk JM, Koppelman GH, Zheng SL, Meyers DA, Bleecker ER, Postma DS. |
Related Articles, |
|
Polymorphisms of the ADAM33 gene are associated with accelerated lung function decline in asthma.
Clin Exp Allergy. 2004 May;34(5):757-60.
PMID: 15144468 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] |
| 19: |
Ieki K, Matsukura S, Kokubu F, Kimura T, Kuga H, Kawaguchi M, Odaka M, Suzuki S, Watanabe S, Takeuchi H, Schleimer RP, Adachi M. |
Related Articles, |
|
Double-stranded RNA activates RANTES gene transcription through co-operation of nuclear factor-kappaB and interferon regulatory factors in human airway epithelial cells.
Clin Exp Allergy. 2004 May;34(5):745-52.
PMID: 15144466 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] |
| 20: |
Barnes KC, Caraballo L, Munoz M, Zambelli-Weiner A, Ehrlich E, Burki M, Jimenez S, Mathias RA, Stockton ML, Deindl P, Mendoza L, Hershey GK, Nickel R, Wills-Karp M. |
Related Articles, |
|
A novel promoter polymorphism in the gene encoding complement component 5 receptor 1 on chromosome 19q13.3 is not associated with asthma and atopy in three independent populations.
Clin Exp Allergy. 2004 May;34(5):736-44.
PMID: 15144465 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] |
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
Jul 27 2004 06:47:37 |
17
posted on
08/10/2004 3:15:33 PM PDT
by
neverdem
(Xin loi min oi)
To: aruanan
Did you hear about increased incidence of asthma among children who as infants and toddlers were given multivitamins? I just checked PubMed. There's nothing.
18
posted on
08/10/2004 3:23:45 PM PDT
by
neverdem
(Xin loi min oi)
To: aruanan
Did you hear about increased incidence of asthma among children who as infants and toddlers were given multivitamins? I wrote too soon. I changed asthma AND multivitamins to asthma AND vitamins. I guess this is what you're referring to.
About Entrez
Text Version
Entrez PubMed
Overview
Help | FAQ
Tutorial
New/Noteworthy
E-Utilities
PubMed Services
Journals Database
MeSH Database
Single Citation Matcher
Batch Citation Matcher
Clinical Queries
LinkOut
Cubby
Related Resources
Order Documents
NLM Gateway
TOXNET
Consumer Health
Clinical Alerts
ClinicalTrials.gov
PubMed Central
|
|
-
Early infant multivitamin supplementation is associated with increased risk for food allergy and asthma.
Milner JD, Stein DM, McCarter R, Moon RY.
Department of Pediatrics, Children's National Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA. jdmilner@niaid.nih.gov
OBJECTIVE: Dietary vitamins have potent immunomodulating effects in vitro. Individual vitamins have been shown to skew T cells toward either T-helper 1 or T-helper 2 phenotypic classes, suggesting that they may participate in inflammatory or allergic disease. With the exception of antioxidant protection, there has been little study on the effect of early vitamin supplementation on the subsequent risk for asthma and allergic disease. The objective of this study was to determine whether early vitamin supplementation during infancy affects the risk for asthma and allergic disease during early childhood. METHODS: Cohort data were analyzed from the National Center for Health Statistics 1988 National Maternal-Infant Health Survey, which followed pregnant women and their newborns, and the 1991 Longitudinal Follow-up of the same patients, which measured health and disease outcomes. Patients were stratified by race and breastfeeding status. Factors that are known to be associated with alteration of risk for asthma or food allergies were identified using univariate logistic regression. Those factors were then analyzed in multivariate logistic regression models. Early vitamin supplementation was defined as vitamin use within the first 6 months. RESULTS: There were >8000 total patients in the study. The overall incidence of asthma was 10.5% and of food allergy was 4.9%. In univariate analysis, male gender, smoker in the household, child care, prematurity (<37 weeks), being black, no history of breastfeeding, lower income, and lower education were associated with higher risk for asthma. Child care, higher levels of education, income, and history of breastfeeding were associated with a higher risk for food allergies. In multivariate logistic analyses, a history of vitamin use within the first 6 months of life was associated with a higher risk for asthma in black infants (odds ratio [OR]: 1.27; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.04-1.56). Early vitamin use was also associated with a higher risk for food allergies in the exclusively formula-fed population (OR: 1.63; 95% CI: 1.21-2.20). Vitamin use at 3 years of age was associated with increased risk for food allergies but not asthma in both breastfed (OR: 1.62; 95% CI: 1.19-2.21) and exclusively formula-fed infants (OR: 1.39; 95% CI: 1.03-1.88). CONCLUSIONS: Early vitamin supplementation is associated with increased risk for asthma in black children and food allergies in exclusively formula-fed children. Additional study is warranted to examine which components most strongly contribute to this risk.
PMID: 15231904 [PubMed - in process]
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
Jul 27 2004 06:47:37 |
19
posted on
08/10/2004 4:07:15 PM PDT
by
neverdem
(Xin loi min oi)
To: neverdem
The genetic predisposition to develop restrictive airways disease can be inherited. During the 1950s and 1960s new medications permitted the survival of severely ill asthma patients who wouldn't otherwise have lived to reproductive age. Then those asthmatics had kids, and their kids had kids, and we are now in the third and fourth generation in some cases. Thus, the tendency to acquire asthma upon exposure to allergic insult is disseminated through the population. Unfortunately, some of these kids get seriously ill, especially when they come into contact with the cigarette smoke and cockroach refuse that are endemic in the worst parts of the inner city, and sometimes their cases aren't followed as closely as they should be. And so we have black children dying in growing numbers.
Before anybody asks what the basis is for makign statements like this: my views were developed in conversation with the clinical researchers at the National Jewish Hospital and Research Center, the nation's foremost center for investigation of respiratory and immune disordes.
20
posted on
08/10/2004 4:10:31 PM PDT
by
Capriole
(DO NOT WRITE IN THIS SPACE. FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY.)
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-20, 21-29 next last
Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson
