ASTHMA BY THE TRUCKLOAD

When Harry and Bill were little kids, they lived by Lake Erie and seemed as healthy as could be. But Father got a big raise and decided to buy his first house. The new home was far from the lake, but less than two blocks from the old Nickel Plate Railroad and its endless streams of freight cars pulled by smoke-belching engines.

The boys played tackle football and baseball on a sandlot right next to the tracks. Within a year, both kids were beginning to wheeze and cough when they went out for a pass or ran the bases. Soon they were in the grips of asthma, which cut short their outdoor activities.

Although they went through all the proscribed scratch tests, Doctor Horace could never locate an appropriate allergen to fight. So the boys continued to suffer. Then fate intervened. Father became a corporate officer and the family moved to then-tony Cleveland Heights, a long distance south of the railway tracks and all the puffer-bellies and their soot.

Miraculously, the boys' asthma began to recede.

Doctor Horace said they were growing out of it.

But today's research says something very different: Soot was at the root of the boys' asthma.

These days researchers are too high-falutin' to use the word "soot." (The government doesn't give big grants to researchers who employ common English.) Instead, scientists write about "light particulate matter" and "coarse particulate matter." But soot is soot, as anybody who has ever lived near a coal-fired railroad or factory knows. (Besides, if anybody ever told you that your kids were breathing in soot, you'd probably get mad enough to stir up Congress and the EPA, which is trouble nobody in Washington wants.)

Today, the factories are gone, as are the puffer-belly engines. But there's a new soot villain in the neighborhood: the big diesel truck. If you live near a highway or road filled with truck traffic, you and your children are in serious danger of having your lungs assaulted by evils like aggravated asthma, coughing, painful breathing, chronic bronchitis, decreased breathing function and premature death.

Kids like Harry and Billy are particularly at risk because their lungs are still forming, making them more susceptible to soot pollution. And active kids breath in twice the volume of air per pound of body weight than do adults. Which means they are breathing in twice the rate of soot compared with adults. Sooted lungs are difficult to cure because fine particulate matter goes deep into the lung cavities, where it stubbornly remains despite labored breathing and intense coughing.

As worldwide pollution increases, so does childhood asthma. Between 1980 and 1994, child asthma in the USA increased 75%. For little ones (0 to 4 years), the increase was a staggering 160%.

In Erie, New York, child asthma increased 93% for children living within 200 meters of truck and trailer traffic. Toronto, suffering a tenfold increase in fine soot, saw child lung diseases increase 24%. A major study in Italy during 1994 and 1995 found that 44% of its metro area kids suffer bronchitis events, with 60% reporting recurrent bronchitis and 86% afflicted by wheezing.

A study of 3,700 kids aged 12-15 in Munster, Germany found that 50% wheezed and 70% suffered allergic rhinitis. In a Birmingham, England, study, children who lived near roads suffered major increases in lung ailments. Those living 500 meters away from roads showed no increases.

A Dutch study compared kids who lived 1,000 meters from major roads with kids who lived within 100 meters of major highways. The kids who lived near the truck traffic suffered major increases in runny noses, wheezing, coughing and asthma.

In 2001, researchers from the University of North Carolina compared the lung health of children living in Mexico City with those living in a seaside town. The seemingly healthy city kids were damaged on the inside. Over 63% of them had obstructions, over 50% had inflammation and over 18% showed signs of advanced lung damage. Only 5% of the seaside kids had obstruction, and none showed signs of inflammation or advanced damage.

Scientists at the University of Southern California found a strong link between the levels of nitrous oxide in the air and child asthma. Their conclusion: for each three-quarters of a mile closer a child lives to a freeway, the risk of asthma increases 89%.

Harry and Billy were told, "Don't play in the street." They would have been better off if they had lived a mile or so away from the street.

If your house is within 500 yards of a road with major truck traffic, you should consider moving. To be reasonably safe, you should live a mile away from a road or highway with major truck traffic.

Your kids will be healthier and happier. And you won't be rushing them to the hospital with breathing problems.

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