[House dust mite "theory" has bitten the dust]
"the tendency to asthma may be completely cured by a
slight change of locality, as, for example, by transference
from the country to the town or from one town to another"
[Black's Medical Dictionary, 18th Edition, 1944, page 76]
Childhood asthma rates are an accurate indicator of the health
of a community, as proved by Dr Dick van Steenis' asthma survey
in West Wales [see "Airborne pollutants and acute health
effects" The Lancet, 8 April 1995 and Dr van Steenis'
lecture to the American
Academy of Environmental Medicine, 3 November 2003] and
elsewhere.
Dr van Steenis mapped out childhood asthma rates and proved
huge variations, e.g. 38% of four to 5-year-olds were chronic
asthmatic in downwind Whitland, Carmarthenshire, compared
with just 1% in Aberaeron and other locations upwind of emissions
from the oil refinery/power station complex at Milford Haven
waterway.
Childhood asthma rates in the 1950s were 1 in 300, mainly
due to moulds from damp houses, then increased due to OP pesticides
in the 1960s, causing multiple sensitivities. These two causes
worked through the mast cells and increased asthma rates to
between 1% and 7% depending on exposure.
A change in fuel in the UK from coal to heavy oil - and under
the present government to waste mixes, led to particles emitted
being much smaller and entering the lungs, affecting the macrophage/T-lymphocyte
system and raising asthma rates as high as 50% plus due to
the explosion in the number of PM2.5s, which are deliberately
not measured in the UK, unlike USA.
The huge increase in UK asthma rates are mainly due to industrial
emissions of PM2.5s, i.e. particles of 2.5 microns and below,
which are small enough to enter the lungs.
Michael Ryan used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain
numbers of Shropshire primary school children bringing inhalers
to school for asthma and found similar wide variations in
the percenatges of Year 3 to 6 children bringing inhalers
to school for asthma: i.e. from less than 2% to 100%.
Dr Dick van Steenis proved that living upwind of industrial
PM2.5 sources such as oil refineries, incinerators and waste
fuel burning industry, vehicles and trains is the only way
to avoid high rates of asthma and many other illnesses, including
infant mortality, COPD, heart attacks, stroke, diabetes 2,
cancers, depression, obesity, ME/CFS, MS, birth defects, etc.
etc. and premature deaths in all age groups.
Prepared by Michael Ryan after discussion with Dr Dick van
Steenis MBBS
30 June 2005 |