Trib completes good series
Today's installment of it's asthma overview was as good as yesterday, but it left many topics unaddressed. While part one stressed the importance of exercise, the rest focused on conventional medicine as the only solution. And I don't even think you need to go totally alternative (accupuncture, the ingestion of live fish and so on), but at the very least they could have mentioned trying to determine your triggers and then find how best to eliminate or cope with them.
The story paints a grim picture of the state of asthma care in Chicago and Illinois:
The state's asthma death rate increased between 1998 and 2001, to where Illinois' mortality is twice the rate of New York and more than three times higher than California.
Mortality rates in Cook County also have soared, increasing 60 percent from 1979 to 2002. Mary Lemmons McGee nearly became one of those statistics when her first severe asthma attack sent her gasping to a hospital emergency room.
"The people at the hospital didn't take it seriously," she said. "They said I was just too emotional. It was all in my head."
1:13:36 PM 
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