Blowin At the Wind.

by Loey Werking Wells
 
 
            My daughter and I have something that we must take with us everywhere we go. No, it’s not a purse, a wallet, phone, or even her Nintendo DS, which I’m sure she’d love to have attached to her body. It’s an asthma inhaler. Yes, we’re two of the 30 million Americans with asthma—for us exposure to cats, rigorous exercise, or large amounts of dirt or dust, can mean the difference between being able to breathe or not. 
 
            Asthma is a chronic lung condition where inflammation—triggered by upper respiratory infections, allergens or irritants—closes off  breathing. Symptoms include coughing, wheezing and difficulty of breath. While asthma is not as deadly for Americans as riding in cars (114 people a day die in car accidents) or the flu (54 people a day die from complications of the flu) it is responsible for around 15 deaths per day in the United States.*   Asthma is usually treated with two different types of inhalers, one used on a regular basis to regulate the disease, and the inhaler we must carry at all times, which contains albuterol, a drug that relaxes the airway during an emergency.  Asthama’s effects are far reaching. While childhood asthma has been on the rise in recent years, either due to more widespread cases or better diagnosis (Web MD, December 12, 2006), a new study has been recently published that says heart disease and stroke are more common in women who have asthma attacks which begin in adulthood than those whose attacks begin in childhood. Strangely this is an affliction that only affects women and not men.
 
            Summer can be a hard time for asthmatics. Heat and air pollution combine to cause havoc to the lungs. Air pollution is especially bad in cities like Los Angeles, or Bejing, since there tends to be high temperatures,  an ever-growing population willing to get behind the wheel of carbon-monoxide spewing automobiles and geographic conditions that trap a heated, toxic stew over the community. Environmental concerns around air quality is one side of growing problem,  the chloroflurocarbons (CFCs) used to propel the drug into the lungs which have been proven to damage the air are another. 
 
            Recently the FDA has started urging patients to take note of a law that will no longer make asthma inhalers that contain chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, available. CFCs are used to propel the drug into the lungs, but are being phased out because of their damage to the Earth’s protective Ozone layer. Damage to the Ozone layer?! What about our lungs, which were in trouble in the first place—if a million people puffing away on their inhalers are enough to propel the FDA to suspend production or sales in the U.S. because of the effect on the ozone layer, than what has been going down our throats? Apparently even though the government has known since 1978 that CFCs are harmful to the environment, they’ve been deemed safe and effective for medical use.
 
            The FDA advises anyone who currently uses a CFC inhaler to talk to their doctors about getting a CFC-free inhaler (new inhalers are made with ozone-friendly hydrofluoroalkianes—HFAs) before December 31^st. The spray coming out of HFA inhalers may feel and taste different, they require a specific upkeep and will cost more, but in the long run will help preserve the greater air quality. 
 
* Flying—that great bugaboo for many—has the lowest annual fatalities, which is only about 120 persons per year dying from plane crashes.