Posted on 11/30/2006 9:46:43 PM PST by neverdem
When our first son developed asthma as a 3-year-old, my husband and I felt pretty much blindsided. We were only a little less shocked when the same thing happened to our second son, at the same age.
The disease turned out to be tenacious, and for years both boys needed inhalers or a nebulizer machine several times a day to prevent asthma attacks that could keep them up half the night, coughing and wheezing.
Both had eczema, too, and the kind of food allergies to nuts, peanuts and shellfish that can lead to fatal reactions.
What caused all this? My husband and I were mystified, because neither of us had asthma or life-threatening allergies, nor did our parents or siblings. I do have hay fever and allergies to cats and dogs, but I had always considered my symptoms just a nuisance not a bad omen for the next generation. My husband isnt allergic to anything.
But we seem to have been caught on a rising tide that no one fully understands. Our sons were born in 1984 and 1987, and we encountered an awful lot of children their ages who had the same illnesses, far more than we remembered from our own generation.
Statistics suggest that something strange was occurring in those years. From 1980 to 2003, the prevalence of asthma in children rose to 5.8 percent from 3.6 percent, an increase of about 60 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Other estimates from the disease centers show an even bigger increase in the asthmas rates for younger children: a 160 percent jump in those younger than 5 from 1980 to 1994. But changes in data collection starting in 1997 make it hard to compare the figures before and after that year.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It would appear that Kalifornia was FOR MTBE before it was AGAINST it. Perhaps they will change their minds again, and we can bring it back.
Yep. My 21 year old daughter recently tested positive for TB. Her X-Rays were negative.She is now on antibiotics for the next six months and hopefully it is not the new strain. I was tested and turned out negative. The wife is next to be tested. A friend of mine had his daughter test positive for TB. She had to be treated and in the meantime he removed her from the "diverse" school. Each day one reads of a new disease import, most recently a worm that eats the brain. "Diversity" will kill us socially, politically and biologically. Why Americans are not rising up is beyond me!
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