Asthma deaths increasing.In an analysis of national health data, R. Michael Sly of Children's Hospital A children's hospital is a hospital which offers its services exclusively to children. The number of children's hospitals proliferated in the 20th century, as pediatric medical and surgical specialties separated from internal medicine and adult surgical specialties. in Washington, D.C., has found that the death rate from asthma has increased since 1977. While there were 0.8 asthma deaths per 100,000 people in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. in 1977, this figure rose to 1.4 in 1982 and to an estimated 1.6 in 1984, he reported at the recent International Congress on Allergology and Clinical immunology Clinical immunology A branch of clinical pathology concerned with the role of the immune defense system in disease. The subject encompasses diseases where a malfunction of the immune system itself is the basic cause, together with diseases where some external held in Washington, D.C. Revisions in asthma definitions may account for some but not all of the increase, Sly says. Paradoxically par·a·dox n. 1. A seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true: the paradox that standing is more tiring than walking. 2. , the availability of better drugs may have led to a more casual attitude toward severe asthma and thus to less careful treatment by both physicians and patients, he says. Robert C. Strunk of the National Jewish Center for Immunology immunology, branch of medicine that studies the response of organisms to foreign substances, e.g., viruses, bacteria, and bacterial toxins (see immunity). Immunologists study the tissues and organs of the immune system (bone marrow, spleen, tonsils, thymus, lymphatic and Respiratory Medicine in Denver and co-workers recently found that 21 severely asthmatic children who died were psychologically less well-adjusted to their condition than were other children with the same degree of illness; the nationwide increase in asthma deaths, at least among children, could be due to the same unknown factor that seems to be pushing up the adolescent suicide rate, he hypothesizes. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion