Chronic Asthma & Bronchitis
While there are patients who just have hay fever and occasional asthma attacks as discrete events and are healthy between pollen or other allergen exposures there is larger group of patients who develop more chronic symptoms. Coughing, shortness of breath and wheezing may occur everyday or most days. Often several medications on a regular schedule are required everyday. With continued antigenic exposure a chronic cell-mediated inflammation takes over. The chronic state is more difficult to characterize and understand. Persistent and recurrent symptoms that require daily medication are suggestive of delayed pattern food allergy. We encourage everyone with chronic or frequently recurrent asthma to try diet revision.
The variable delay of absorption of food antigens and the biphasic asthma response to discrete antigen challenge makes for a confusing variability in the timing of symptom-sequences following food ingestion. Further confusion arises when antigen challenge comes from food eaten everyday and acute responses overly chronic inflammatory activity in a complex and variable system of symptom production.
Bronchitis
Bronchitis is an inflammation of the bronchi, the large airways inside the lungs with increased mucus production and cough. Bronchitis can be caused by infections, food allergy, or by exposure to airborne allergens and irritants such as dust, fumes, or cigarette smoke. If caused by a virus, the bronchitis will likely be only temporary. If the exposure to irritants is persistent, then permanent damage to the bronchi, bronchitis may occur. Delayed pattern food allergy can cause chronic bronchitis with cough that is quite mysterious - no-one can guess the cause or identify the cause with tests. Only a trial of diet revision reveals the food cause. Cow's milk allergy is the most common cause of chronic bronchitis ( does not show up on skin tests).
Treatment Strategy
The three basic treatment choices are:
Facing Deadly Fish Virus, Chile Introduces Reforms (This article is from the New York Times)
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
With a deadly virus threatening its fish farms, Chile has introduced measures to improve the sanitary conditions of its salmon industry and reduce the levels of antibiotics used to treat the fish.
Joao Piña for The New York Times
A sign on a bus in Castro, Chile, says salmon are grown at all costs, meaning that the industry is growing without proper regulations. It is part of a campaign by pro-environmental Oxfam.
Chile exports more salmon to the United States than to any other country besides Japan, but it has drawn sharp criticism from environmentalists and other experts in recent months as a virus has killed millions of its salmon. The illness, infectious salmon anemia, or I.S.A., continues to spread, underscoring how the crowded conditions of Chile’s fish farms and other sanitary concerns are giving rise to a variety of fungal and bacterial fish ailments.
Environmentalists and industry officials applauded the Chilean government’s efforts, which were first announced last week, to clean up the industry and reduce antibiotic use. Hugo Lavados, Chile’s economy minister, said that after almost four months of study, a government panel identified steps that would ease conditions in crowded salmon pens and provide greater protection against the introduction of high-risk illnesses in salmon eggs. The economy minister also noted that the “intensive†use of antibiotics, although legal in Chile, needed to change and that a specific plan for lowering levels would be finalized by December.
By DAVID STOUT (This Article is from the New York Times)
Published: September 4, 2008
WASHINGTON — Announcing what it called new “surf and turf†standards, the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday set stricter antipollution rules for engines that run pleasure boats, lawn mowers and weed trimmers.
The agency said the rules would take effect in 2011 for lawn and garden equipment of 25 horsepower or less, and in 2010 for a wide range of inboard and outboard boat engines. Meeting the requirements will probably mean that catalytic converters, standard in modern cars, will become commonplace in lawn-equipment and boat engines.
As if to head off any notion that it is just not worth the trouble to make boats, mowers and weed trimmers cleaner to run, the agency’s administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, offered some attention-getting estimates.
“When fully implemented,†Mr. Johnson said, “the rule will yield annual emission reductions of 600,000 tons of hydrocarbons, 130,000 tons of nitrogen oxide, 5,500 tons of direct particulate matter and 1.5 million tons of carbon monoxide.â€
Furthermore, he added, Americans could save about 190 million gallons of gasoline each year.
The new rules, which were initially resisted by engine-makers, are expected to make lawn-equipment and boat engines more expensive.
But the agency said the public health benefits would more than compensate for initial consumer costs, and environmentalists agreed. “Cleaner lawn mowers mean less summertime smog and healthier air for millions of kids,†said Vickie Patton of the Environmental Defense Fund.
Gustav Was No Katrina, but Next Time ... (This Article is from the New York Times)
by John Schwartz
From the triumphant tone of some public statements and news coverage after Gustav passed through, it would be easy to think that the upgraded hurricane protection system in New Orleans had passed its first big test and that it’s all bon temps from here.
But complacency is as big a threat as wind and storm surge to a city that still has a long way to go — especially in light of rising oceans and a subsiding landscape.
Gustav had looked like a monster on its way toward land. On Saturday, Aug. 30, the National Hurricane Center described Gustav as an “extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane†that could become a Category 5, and was on a track that would take it slightly to the west of New Orleans. Mayor C. Ray Nagin ordered an evacuation for what he called “the mother of all storms,†and an estimated two million people got out of southern Louisiana before the storm hit on Monday.
By landfall on Monday morning, however Gustav had weakened considerably and its track had slipped a bit farther west. The impact on New Orleans was blessedly slight.
Lt. Gen. Robert L. Van Antwerp, the commanding general of the Army Corps of Engineers, said last week that good news about the storm could leave officials who had urged evacuation open to criticism of crying wolf — the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t conundrum that comes with any hurricane. “I would hope this wouldn’t cause people to say, ‘next time, we’re not going,’ †he said. “You were taking a real gamble if you don’t do exactly what people did.â€
After all, he said, “what if the track had been 30 miles different and had gone east? And it could have.†When it comes to evacuations, better safe than sorry, the general said. “That was a big lesson of Katrina.â€
I am an avid user of Myspace. Lately The Ecology Works has been able to get in touch with many different individuals who are trying to make some sort of difference when it comes to our weakening environment. Today when I logged on to Myspace I received the following message:
Hello,
I would like to introduce myself to you as a person also compassionate about the environment. I would like to invite you to become a friend of my page and possibly educate you on the problem in which my family and I have encountered. Imagine starting a chapter in your life of starting a family, moving into a new home, and not really having the right to enjoy your new home. Additionally, being told by your community leaders and others that really you don’t have “clean air†rights.
Basically, you will see from the page I have created, that I have become passionate about my freedom to clean air. I have had this circumstance brought upon my wife and I without choice. We were actually eventually forced to move from our home. I am looking for your support in any way possible, even if it is simply becoming a friend on my page or sharing my page with your friends who are environmentally sound.
I chose to contact you because I researched myspace looking for those who seemed mutually in agreeing that our environment is very precious. I found you and your page in that search. If you enjoy my page please also visit the Clean Air Revival’s myspace page: www. myspace. com/cleanairrevival. This is a n