St. Louis Ranks Sixth in Cases of Asthma and Allergies

Back in the early 1900's St. Louis was a coal burning city. At one point it got so bad that it was as dark as midnight in the middle of the day. The recently opened Missouri Botanical Garden had to purchase land about 40 miles outside of the city out of fear that a lot of the delicate plants housed there would die from the pollution.

When I was growing up near downtown we could smell the acrid chemicals from the chemical plant that was all the way across the river in Illinois. A friend's father worked there and the fumes burned his throat so bad that he could no longer talk.

St. Louis has cleaned up its act now. We no longer burn coal and the chemical plants have strict pollution guidelines, but the air quality around here still gets pretty bad when there's smog in the summer. St. Louis also ranks sixth in the country for cases of asthma and allergies. According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

"St. Louis has been dethroned as asthma-allergy capital of the United States, but not by much. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America ranks St. Louis No. 6, which in one way, is good news. Last year St. Louis was ranked No. 1"

Well, at least we're not number one anymore, but number six is not very much better. Some of the reasons that we are ranked so high is not even under our control. Since St. Louis is renown for its humidity in the summer, there is a lot of opportunities for mold to grow. The reason that we have so much humidity is the fact that we are stuck between two major rivers.

Although the city-wide smoking ban has helped us a lot, there are other factors here in St. Louis to be worried about. We had 13 deaths that were attributed to asthma last year and that's too many.

Economics also play a role. 1 in 13 kids living in the city have asthma, but in some of the neighborhoods in the impoverished north side, the number is as high as 1 in 5. The number one reason for emergency room visits for children is because of asthma.

Most children who have asthma are given two inhalers: one for daily use and one to use in emergencies, but most only use the one that is designated for emergencies. Whose number one in the nation? Richmond Virginia, right in the heart of coal country.

Source: http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/article_6b65cf50-4b50-11e0-9579-00127992bc8b.html