First, let’s go back a month, this from the Will Steger Foundation:
On Tuesday [August 2nd 2011], State Senator Torres Ray said, “I’m delighted to participate in the air quality awareness event organized by the Sierra Club in Minneapolis. Air Pollution caused by humans is an increasing danger for people and the environment. I’m very concerned about the threat to public health posed by cities’ air pollution. Many children and seniors in our City are being diagnosed with asthma disorders and need to take strong measures to address it.”
…
Residents are also calling upon the Obama administration to protect children’s health by issuing strong protections from air pollution like smog. The EPA was scheduled to release its final rule on smog on July 29 but announced last week that it would delay finalizing the rule. The new ozone standard would protect some of America’s most vulnerable populations, including children and the elderly, from respiratory illnesses like asthma. “EPA’s Science Advisory Board and health professionals have advocated a stricter standard for most of the 40 years that we’ve been monitoring ozone in the air we breathe,” said Dr. Simcik, a faculty member at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. “We need an educated public to support these experts and politicians in protecting both our health and our economy.” Dr. Simcik and other concerned citizens of Minneapolis urged the Obama administration to stand up for public health and to issue long overdue clean air protections that protect public health.
###
So the Sierra Club wants to reduce Ozone. But now in the story below the FDA wants to protect it by banning OTC inhalers. Wait…What?
(Yes I know, tropospheric -vs- stratospheric ozone, different animals. But the inhaler imagery with kids has become an icon for eco-crusades, so that’s why I’m pointing it out)
From MSNBC, madness lunacy %$!!@*&^^!! over ozone and an inconsequential amount of CFC’s:
Asthma patients who rely on over-the-counter inhalers will need to switch to prescription-only alternatives as part of the federal government’s latest attempt to protect the Earth’s atmosphere.
The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday patients who use the epinephrine inhalers to treat mild asthma will need to switch by Dec. 31 to other types that do not contain chlorofluorocarbons, an aerosol substance once found in a variety of spray products.
The action is part of an agreement signed by the U.S. and other nations to stop using substances that deplete the ozone layer, a region in the atmosphere that helps block harmful ultraviolet rays from the Sun.
But the switch to a greener inhaler will cost consumers more. Epinephrine inhalers are available via online retailers for around $20, whereas the alternatives, which contain the drug albuterol, range from $30 to $60.
But I wonder, will the American Lung Association get all flustered and launch an ad campaign like they did last November over California’s Proposition 23?
I doubt it, because as we all know, kids with inhalers are needed to combat big oil and CO2.
The eco-world has gone beserkers with this one, even CBS News is asking: Why? Me too especially since global ozone is predicted to recover:
The graph above is from a 2004 EPA report which says:
Assuming only halocarbons from human activities are affecting ozone and global compliance with the Montreal Protocol, the ozone layer is expected to recover by the middle of the 21st century.
And this is well before the FDA decided they had to ban inhalers. Something smells about this.
What will really happen is that this will turn regular people and children into scofflaws, and they’ll buy over the counter inhalers in other countries like Mexico and have them shipped here. It will be another giant sucking sound.
The frantic rush of the progressive bureau-weenies toward regulation nation is really just beginning, because they have become dimly aware they only have 5 more quarters in control of the Executive branch and the Senate. The 113th congress will have a lot of heavy lifting to do in the area of rolling back regulatory overreach.
d(^_^)b
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”
The Chief Watermelon loves her power and the American public needs to feel it. She is doing it for your own good. Her Momma did it to her.
So this is what its come to. And its not done on its journey. But here it is, risking the lives of children. If there was ever any proof necessary that these people are misanthropists, does one need to look any further?
Ozone? We only think its worth considering because when we finally had a way to measure it, we discovered a hole we didn’t think was suppose to be there. We don’t know that it wasn’t suppose to be like that all along! And, there’s mounting evidence the hole serves a useful purpose!
This is insane, but blame big pharma and not Obama. This is what lobbying dollars buy you, a nice gov controlled monopoly. This works in both Repub and Dem administrations. Remember Bushes unfunded medicare part D where the government had to pay whatever the pharmas asked for drugs and could not negotiate. Ten of billions in debt, right there.
…ozone layer, a region in the atmosphere that helps block harmful ultraviolet rays from the Sun.
—————————————————————————————————————————
In accordance with another theory ozone layer itself is made by Solar radiation.
The patent holder on the non-CFC inhalers had a better lobbying campaign.
So… the Greens and the climate/ozone elites don’t care if children with asthma die as long as a harmless, miniscule amount of CFC vapor is prevented from being potentially released into the atmosphere from the inhalers…
Its not about CFCs. It never was. Its about control.
Should any agency have that much power?
I’m very concerned about the threat to public health posed by cities’ air pollution. Many children and seniors in our City are being diagnosed with asthma disorders and need to take strong measures to address it.”
The incidence of asthma is strongly correlated with air cleanliness. The cleaner the air the higher the incidence of asthma.
It could be like cleanliness and allergies. Not being exposed (to air pollutants) at a certain stage of development makes you susceptible later in life.
The AGW hysteria is probably contributing by the constant references to ‘carbon pollution’ makes people think CO2 is a real pollutant.
Brad Kurtz says:
September 23, 2011 at 7:28 pm
This is insane, but blame big pharma and not Obama.
The Montreal Protocol was signed under Clinton (Carol Browner)
You know, this Carol Browner.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/12/obama-climate-czar-has-socialist-ties/?page=all
I am not a climate scientist, only an interested observer. During the last few years I have become totally disgusted with the scare tactics exercised by our governments, the sensationalist media, and the revenue suckers who feed the propoganda machine. I’m beginning to think common sense no longer exists.
Brad,
Tough to see the connection to the topic
What you fail to mention is that the Dems wanted a much more expensive program for Medicare Part B and are still smarting because they could not push the government run more inefficient program through.
They lost, the taxpayers won with a lower cost competitive system which has not exceeded cost estimates.
Blame big Pharma? I guess blaming Bush is not credible anymore?
I am an asthmatic. When they changed the legal inhalers it was immediately obvious that the medicine delivery was poor and the effectiveness of the meds was undercut significantly. Any lawyers out there want to study this and start suing? I would join a class action in a New York Minute. This is the dumbest thing ever done by the EPA and I suspect it was fully supported by the drug manufacturers because all the generic patents went away in a puff and they immediately made money hand over fist. This was the issue that started my long and now fervent fight against insane environmental activism. I will fight the lunatics with literally my dying breath thanks to malevolent government agencies like the EPA.
More proof that for environmentalists the environment matters more than people. Some asthmatics will pay the ultimate price for this (and I’m not talking about increased drug costs). I agree with Anthony: “%$!!@*&^^!!”
The Ozone Layer is driven by solar activity. This has been known for 20 years. The US government is responding to junk science used by drug companies to sell prescription drugs.
Take for instance the idea the a low salt diet is good. Well, we know that in morbidly obese people, reducing salt lowers blood volume and thus lowers blood pressure, increasing life spans. However, there is ZERO science that reduced salt diets are good for healthy people.
Yet the US government continues to promote low salt diets for healthy people. We might as well argue that since digitalis is good for people with heart conditions, it will be good for everyone else as well.
What we do know is that US cadavers in WWII showed almost no evidence of heart disease, and yet the US cadavers in the Korean war showed advanced heart disease, even in 18 year old combatants. So the question should been what happened between 1940 and 1950 that caused US heart disease to spike? It wasn’t salt that is for sure.
The number 1 one suspect? Artificial food introduced during WWII. Food that didn’t need to be canned, that could sit unrefrigerated forever and never rot. Maybe, just maybe the human body was never designed to eat such a product. However, there have been many fortunes made off artificial food, so don’t expect any serious investigations. The problem is the public. They are eating too much salt. Or using too many inhalers.
You missed the much more amusing AP version of the story:
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9PTK9DO0.htm
which describes CFC’s as “carbon gas that depletes the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Yep, that evil carbon again ;).
The problem with this article is that it is wrong for the right reasons: in my medical opinion (real doctor, family medicine, board certified) the epinephrine inhaler is dangerous and should be withdrawn or made Rx. 5000 mild to moderate asthmatics die every year in the US because of inadequate primary care interventions. Epinephrine sensitises the heart muscle and increases contractility, heart rate and the potential for fatal arrhythmias. Having it available otc enables asthmatics to fly “under the radar” and not have a comprehensive medical plan to deal with their disease: inevitably increases ER visits and makes delivery of medical services more expensive to the taxpayer or person with insurance as these visits have to be paid for somewhere. The Rx drug of choice is Albuterol, a version of which is available at WalMart for around $10. Admittedly inhaled steroids are more expensive, but if the lunatics who run the asylum hadn’t insisted on the HFA propellants some inhaled steroids would be generic by now. The amount of CFCs produced by all the inhalers in the world wouldn’t amount to the margin of error in measurement when dispersed into the atmosphere. Big business goes along with the farce because it makes money, like the Flexfuel fiasco or the compact fluorecent lights.
Ozone and asthma are INVERSELY related. I showed it here, using EPA’s own damn data:
http://polistrasmill.blogspot.com/2011/09/one-minute-to-disprove.html
Another Smoldering Stogie of Misinformation from the Lung Association
If you watch Fox News—and really, who doesn’t watch Fox News?—you’ve probably seen the ads the American Lung Association is running displaying a red baby carriage with a coughing infant making its way to the U.S. capitol, urging us to urge Congress not to “weaken” the Clean Air Act. “More air pollution means more childhood asthma,” the narrator says. (There isn’t a direct link to the ad, but you can find it on the linked site of their PR agency, the Plowshare Group, and if that name doesn’t give it all way. . .)
“Congress can’t ignore the facts,” the narrator says, but apparently the ALA can. Is there any place in the U.S. that is experiencing “more” air pollution? If there is, I am not aware of it, nor am I aware of any EPA data that supports that claim. Air pollution continues to fall everywhere in the U.S., and is going to continue to decline. The ALA ad is fundamentally dishonest in that Congress is not proposing to “weaken” the Clean Air Act; it is merely proposing to stop its further extension that will do little or nothing to accelerate the continuing decline in air pollution levels. (The EPA’s own computer models, for example, predict about a 60 percent decline in emissions from cars and trucks over the next 20 years simply from fleet turnover.) In fact, the recent ozone rules that Obama dumped would have had no effect, for example, on the rate at which air pollution is falling in Los Angeles. (Emissions from cars and trucks have been falling about 8 percent a year for over a decade, with more to come.) All it would have done is put about 85 percent of the nation in “nonattainment” areas, tripping requirements to expand their regulatory bureaucracies.
More to the point is that the health effects claims of the ALA and other greenies are probably wrong, or at least out of date. Yes, the incidence of asthma has been steadily increasing, though most of the research into why this is occurring suggest the cause is some kind of autoimmune anomaly, and not air pollution levels. While air pollution, especially particulates, may trigger asthma in people who already have it, it almost certainly does not cause someone to contract the ailment. (While our EPA is slavish to the alarmist line, check out Australia’s Office of Health, which says straightforwardly: “There is no evidence that air pollution causes asthma.”) In fact, guess which nations have some of the lowest asthma rates according to the 1998 International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC): China, India, Mexico, and Indonesia—not exactly known as low air pollution nations, to put it lightly. Oddly, the nations with cleaner air have higher asthma rates.
Mr. Hayward’s article appears here:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/09/another-smoldering-stogie-of-misinformation-from-the-lung-association.php
AGW as a ground for genocide
Armed Troops Burn Down Homes, Kill Children To Evict Ugandans In Name Of Global Warming
http://www.prisonplanet.com/armed-troops-burn-down-homes-kill-children-to-evict-ugandans-in-name-of-global-warming.html
This is unconscionable. Prescription inhalers have already been reformulated to allegedly protect the ozone layer. Problem is, they are no longer very effective because the propellants approved by the EPA don’t get the medication into the lungs.
People who cannot afford the prescription inhalers are being even more cruelly endangered by this insane administration. At what point do living creatures (many animals rely on asthma inhalers, too) take precedence over an imaginary being, the physical Earth Mother? Is there no end in sight to this superstitious nonsense? As a former pagan, now agnostic, I can certainly empathize with Earth Mother worshipers, but not at the expense of living physical entities and their desperate need to breathe. The cruelty, stupidity, and insensitivity of these supposedly enlightened beings are astounding. I’m also appalled at their lateness to the party: Everything they believe in was already metaphysically passé by 1980.
“We need an educated public to support these experts and politicians in protecting both our health and our economy.”
– Dr. Simcik
– – – – – – – – –
Uh, we are saying “No!” … what part are you not connecting with? Remember last November, and a couple of elections (NY Ninth for one) just within the last two weeks?
.
“Air Pollution caused by humans is an increasing danger for people and the environment.” As usual, the environmentalists are lying. Real pollutants, such as carbon monoxide, ground-level ozone, lead, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide have all been trending down for years: http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/index.html
That’s funny; I need the EPA here, tonight, on my street.
Somebody is burning something again and it doesn’t smell like simple firewood! Once again, the EPA is straining for the gnats and swallowing ‘the camels’ … GET the danged economy going again and ppl won’t be burning crap (incl plastics and printed cardboard boxes) JUST to cook a meal or get warm! How would THAT do for improving “air quality”?
.
Brad Kurtz says:
September 23, 2011 at 7:28 pm
Obama appointed this Watermelon to her job knowing exactly what she is. Obama asked for the ruling on CO2. Obama and the EPA are out of control. The EPA is a danger to America and should be abolished immediately.
It’s such a little thing.
The inhaler?
No … the bureaucratic mind that comes up with such utter stupidity.
As a scientist, I have long thought that there was an inverse relationship between asthma and air pollution but never had the data to demonstrate the relationship. Thanks to the people that posted here, I now have the information. I grew up in LA in the 1950-70 time frame and never knew anyone with asthma. How much of the diagnosis of asthma is due to attribution and how much is due to cleaner air. Man never was made to be perfectly clean. Dirt builds immune systems. So maybe, with nothing better to do, the immune system starts attacking the body instead of non-existent invasive germs.
Well I’m one of the people affected by this. I have asthma, as do my father and grandmother. Not only can I not afford doctors and prescription inhalers, I’ve tried them all before (my father can afford them) and none of them work as well or quickly as Primatene Mist, the only OTC inhaler. Not even remotely as well. I am desperately begging and borrowing money to hoard these, but even if I had thousands, they’ll expire in a year or two anyway. What then?
The alternatives not only don’t work as well (for some of us, like all medications reactions vary), but some are actually harmful. Take the ‘asthma medication’ Advair for example, from which users “have an increased risk of death from asthma problems.”
see http://www.advair.com/ (first bullet point).
To me this ban is a death sentence. I can’t afford the alternatives, and even if I could my quality of life will still go way down. I don’t have the faintest idea what I’m supposed to do. It’s hard to believe this is happening, and in America of all places. I can only hope some sort of inhaler black market will open up.
If anyone wants to add some support to a [no doubt futile] attempt to bring some more attention to the issue, you could sign this petition on the new whitehouse.gov petition site:
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/%21/petition/legalize-cfc-asthma-copd-and-cystic-fibrosis-inhalers/W05N2D6s?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
Here’s another website with doctor/patient quotes and some ozone/CFC/HFA science links if anyone’s interested:
https://www.savecfcinhalers.org/JUNK_SCIENCE_KILLS.html
• Fiscal Responsibility
• Constitutionally Limited Government
• Free Markets
We have barely 13 months left to organize, muster a voting majority, and this progressive disaster out of every office we can achieve. We can’t effect real change in the progressive bureaucracies and agencies unless their political supporters are ousted.
Well, I don’t know enough about the atmospheric science to say if OTC inhalers matter a rats-arse or not, but I do know this: if you double or triple the price of inhalers people, mainly in lower socio-economic groups, will die. And quite a few.
Presently about 250,000 die from asthma each year, globally.
One key risk area is the `acute asthma attack’, at home, with no-one around to help. A sufferer has trouble speaking. If no inhaler is available, the chances of an acute attack rise. If no inhaler is available and an acute attack sets in, the chances of dying before reaching hospital are significantly increased. I know this as my wife is a chronic asthmatic and has experienced several near death acute episodes. It is a frightenning thing to see, let alone experience. Asthmatics can become absolutely terrified about their next acute attack, as they know how hight the stakes are.
Diffiucult to put numbers on any of these things, but let’s assume a 300% price rise results in a 10% increase in worldwide deaths from a decrease in compliance with prudent asthma management which, on any view of it, includes having an inhaler available at all times. That equates to 25,000 deaths per year sacrificed on the basis of some (probably, it seems) loopy theory about OTC inhalers contributing to the end of civilisation as we know it …
These people are misanthropes.
If it bleeds, it leads. If it’s not bleeding, kick it until it bleeds. And so our sensationalizing press doesn’t worry about such little trivial things like facts. And when it comes to sensationalizing, FoxNews is no better (or worse) than the rest of the MSM.
So wait, is the ban actually against over-the-counter epinephrine as Dr. Chorley @ 8:08 above intimates, or is it against the trivial amount of flourocarbons in the dispenser. I know the reason that was used, but wonder about back channel dismay about epinephrine, AKA adrenaline.
Note, Doc, how many lives have been saved by the easy availability of a life saving drug.
====================
They tried to do this in 2007 and we helped to beat it back. Spread this far and wide and hopefully we can kill it again.
Philip Bradley says: September 23, 2011 at 7:46 pm
…The incidence of asthma is strongly correlated with air cleanliness. The cleaner the air the higher the incidence of asthma.
I believe cigarettes are beneficial to asthmatics too!!!
– ridiculous.
The EPA was all set for their great CO2 as a pollutant power grab, but that is now on hold. What to do? Invent another threat in yet another grab for power and to justify their budget. That is all this is.
Expect them to find more “dire threats” and invent reasons to regulate or ban smaller and smaller amounts of these “threats”. They need to “save the planet”, and if we don’t let them save us from CO2, they will just find some other excuse to “save” (control) us (and save their budget).
BTW, about that ozone hole…
I was listening to a talk show a number of years ago when I heard a caller call in and talk about when they first discovered the ozone hole. It was, I believe, written about in NASA magazine. If i remember right, it was in a 1938 edition…
“Ozone destroying” chemicals were not invented untill the late 50’s or used till the early 60’s.
kim says:
“So wait, is the ban actually against over-the-counter epinephrine as Dr. Chorley @ 8:08 above intimates, or is it against the trivial amount of flourocarbons in the dispenser.”
It’s against the CFCs themselves:
http://www.primatene.com/doc/PressRelease07-27-2011.pdf
I’ll have to agree with Gordon Cargal and Anton, the compliant inhalers are very weak. You press it, and hardly anything comes out – it’s hard to get relief from it if you’re already wheezing and can’t draw in a big breath. This Montreal Protocal crap has been out of hand for a while, but as a treaty, there is nothing we can do unless every signatory agrees.
Oh, I forgot to mention that it’s not available in the generic form anymore, so I get to pay big $$$ for something that works like crap.
To me it appears that environmentalists fall into one of two groups:
(1) Those who want to use excessive regulations to bring about Marxism. The pattern seems to be to take money from wealth nations and give it to poor nations.
(2) Those who act like humans are a virus on the Earth.
This appears to be the virus group and they appear to be a cold lot.
Why would anyone want to have others suffer?
Gordon Cargal says:
September 23, 2011 at 7:55 pm
“I am an asthmatic”
One of my kids has asthma.
“When they changed the legal inhalers it was immediately obvious that the medicine delivery was poor and the effectiveness of the meds was undercut significantly.”
Yup. Price skyrocketed and it didn’t work nearly as well. Especially albuterol which is a rescue inhaler and you need that to be as effective as possible as quickly as possible.
“Any lawyers out there want to study this and start suing? I would join a class action in a New York Minute.”
Count me in too. That would probably be the biggest class in history of class actions. EPA probably can’t be sued. Rick Perry would be happy to fire the whole lot of rent seeking bureaucrats in that agency and a number of others. He’ll do it too if we give him the chance.
“This is the dumbest thing ever done by the EPA and I suspect it was fully supported by the drug manufacturers because all the generic patents went away in a puff and they immediately made money hand over fist.”
That agency has done a lot of dumb things. You’d need a graduate degree in EPA Extremities to sort out the dumbest. You’d need to at least minor in US Fish & Wildlife Service Senselessness to figure out which agency is altogether stupider.
“This was the issue that started my long and now fervent fight against insane environmental activism. I will fight the lunatics with literally my dying breath thanks to malevolent government agencies like the EPA.”
Vote for Rick Perry. He’ll clean house in the US Fish & Wildlife Service too. They hurt a lot of farmers in Texas, condemning vast tracts of land to protect useless things like cave crickets, blind salamandars, and bird species that are really sub-species at best that take an expert to tell apart from more common members of the species, and so forth. I have at least two endangered species on my property – black capped vireos and yellow throated warblers and (I sh-t you not) these are different from any other warblers or vireos by a small splotch of differently colored feathers and preference for a narrowly defined habitat. There are many different standards by which “species” are defined. The gold standard is called the biological definition which means that for two populations to be different species they are not capable of cross-breeding under any circumstance. Since it’s nigh onto impossible to test for physical interbreeding capability a very popular looser standard is used called reproductive isolation which pretty much translates to “if no one has observed the populations interbreeding, by voluntary mate selection preferences or involuntary geographic separation, then they are separate species”. This is a lot easier way for biologists to classify different species as it takes virtually no effort and rent seeking federal bureaucrats use these loose definitions to control more private property and enlarge their empires.
James Sexton says: September 23, 2011 at 7:27 pm
Ozone? We only think its worth considering because when we finally had a way to measure it, we discovered a hole we didn’t think was suppose to be there. We don’t know that it wasn’t suppose to be like that all along! And, there’s mounting evidence the hole serves a useful purpose
I have a hypothesis that the “Ozone Hole” results from a Stratospheric Polar Vortex. Polar Vortices “are caused when an area of low pressure sits at the rotation pole of a planet. This causes air to spiral down from higher in the atmosphere, like water going down a drain.”
http://www.universetoday.com/973/what-venus-and-saturn-have-in-common/.
Air towards the top of the stratosphere has a lower concentration of ozone;
http://www.epa.gov/ozone/science/images/FIG-FAQ01.JPG
thus when it sinks within the funnel of the Polar Vortex it displaces the air below it, decreasing the concentration of ozone and creating an “ozone hole”.
For reference, “A polar vortex is a persistent, large-scale cyclone located near one or both of a planet’s geographical poles.” “The vortex is most powerful in the hemisphere’s winter, when the temperature gradient is steepest, and diminishes or can disappear in the summer. The Antarctic polar vortex is more pronounced and persistent than the Arctic one; this is because the distribution of land masses at high latitudes in the northern hemisphere gives rise to Rossby waves which contribute to the breakdown of the vortex, whereas in the southern hemisphere the vortex remains less disturbed. The breakdown of the polar vortex is an extreme event known as a Sudden stratospheric warming, here the vortex completely breaks down and an associated warming of 30-50 degrees Celsius over a few days can occur. The Arctic vortex is elongated in shape, with two centres, one roughly over Baffin Island in Canada and the other over northeast Siberia. In rare events, the vortex can push further south as a result of axis interruption, see January 1985 Arctic outbreak.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_vortex
Here’s an animation of the Arctic Polar Vortex in Winter 2008 – 09;
and this site offers a gallery of Stratospheric Polar Vortices;
http://www.jhu.edu/~dwaugh1/gallery_stratosphere.html
Thoughts and challenges would be most appreciated.
Bwahahahaa. It’s only fair, screw ’em. If they don’t like that, they should consider that when they vote.
D. King says:
September 23, 2011 at 7:48 pm
Brad Kurtz says:
September 23, 2011 at 7:28 pm
This is insane, but blame big pharma and not Obama.
The Montreal Protocol was signed under Clinton (Carol Browner)
You know, this Carol Browner.
“Socialist International, an umbrella group”
I would put money on it that the fake charities and NGOs in this “umbrella group” were lobbying their old mate Carol on the BIg Pharma dollar.
jphilips says: (September 23, 2011 at 10:30 pm) “I believe cigarettes are beneficial to asthmatics too!!! – ridiculous.”
Please keep an open mind, jphilips — I know one asthmatic (and sportsman) who cigarettes give a life to.
Dave Springer says:
September 23, 2011 at 11:56 pm
Gordon Cargal says:
September 23, 2011 at 7:55 pm .
Re: Class Action Suit
Count me in, as well. I’m a rare user of an albuterol inhaler, but when I need it, I really need it. I’m susceptible to lung infections, as a result of radiation treatments from a prior cage match with throat cancer. When these lung infections hit me 2-3 times a year, the inhaler is my refuge until I can get a strong dose of antibiotics to take effect and restore a reasonable lung exchange volume. The last few years, the inhalers don’t seem to be as effective. Now I know why… Believe me when I say, I’d take water boarding any day over that desperate feeling of not being able to get enough air into my lungs.
Aspirated water is an uncomfortable but temporary effect that you can cough out, if you don’t panic. I grew up swimming open water in Wisconsin lakes. As a small child, my parents taught us that we would aspirate water on occasion… and how to deal with it. Don’t panic. Roll onto your side (side stroke) or back (back stroke) as soon as you can and cough the water out. Catch your breath and go back to swimming.
But swelling bronchial passages combined with congested alveoli leave you so short on breath you are desperate. Coughing can make it worse, leaving you with little recourse but artificial means to effect relief. Anything that impairs the effectiveness of an inhaler is willful and needless torture. That should be the basis for any class action law suit.
I’m just back from Spain where I bought 12 salbutamol (= albuterol) inhalers for about $5 each. You can buy them OTC in a pharmacy there although a pharmacist told me they would become prescription only next year. No doubt the price will go up in Spain when they do. The price you pay in the US looks ridiculous to me but that’s big pharma for you. Americans are ripped off by the medical cartel at every turn. You don’t get better outcomes than other countries where health care is typically half the price.
The brand I use (Ventolin) has HFA 134a as propellant. It’s nothing like as good as the old CFCs and the dosage is very inconsistent. It works fine when full and one puff works but the last quarter is pretty useless and I have to use 3 puffs or more. Half as effective so sell twice as many – big pharma again.
Follow the money. Voters don’t pay the politicians’ campaign costs so lobbyists can buy the ‘policies’ they want. The best democracy that money can buy. Here is the UK there are tight restrictions on the total amount of money that politicians can spend of their campaigns – only a few thousand dollars. Crucially the parties are given free television advertising. In the 2005 general election the campaign expenditure of the Conservative Party was £17.85 million (approximately US$25 million), £17.94 million (approximately US$25 million) for the Labour Party, and £4.32 million (approximately US$6 million) for the Liberal Democrats. Enforcement is effective because the parties check up on each other. Set a thief to catch a thief. This all makes politicians more dependent on the party support and so are less easily corrupted.
The clean air fanatics always give me a good laugh – they really have no idea what real pollution is! I started work in Birmingham (UK) in the late 50s when you could smell and taste the foul yellow, sulphurous air and even (some said) cut it with a knife. Flares like little watering cans had to be placed along main routes so that bus drivers could find their way and, on several occasions, I had to have a friend walk in front of my car with a white handkerchief to guide me. Apart from public holidays, it was impossible to see more than a few hundred yards over the rooftops through the industrial and domestic air pollution.
I’m all in favour of clean air. In most cities in the UK, air quality is now pretty good and still improving. Do we really want to bring the economy to a full stop in pursuance of the final 1%?
Philip Bradley says: September 23, 2011 at 7:46 pm
…The incidence of asthma is strongly correlated with air cleanliness. The cleaner the air the higher the incidence of asthma.
I believe cigarettes are beneficial to asthmatics too!!!
– ridiculous.
Then how do you explain the fact that incidence of asthma increased rapidly in the developed world from the 1960s to the 1990s when it levelled out. This being the period of time when clean air acts were progressively implemented.
The incidence of asthma showed no such rise in developing countries where air pollution generally increased during this period.
I direct you to this Australian government site that lists possible causes of asthma.
It does not mention air pollution as a cause, excepting indoor cigarette smoke.
http://www.healthinsite.gov.au/topics/Causes_of_Asthma
A few points need clarification: Since MDIs were introduced around 1970, hospitalization rates for asthma have gone down, while death rates for asthma have risen — probably because pts able to self medicate delay seeking medical attention during a crisis. It’s also true OTC epinephrine inhalers (OTC) cause more cardiac dysrythmias than albuterol preps (Rx). –Asthma rates have risen over the yrs merely due to better recognition of the problem. — Pollution doesn’t cause asthma, a genetic problem, but exacerbates it. And it’s not the ozone, but the atmospheric conditions that favor higher concentrations of particulate matter &/or humidity in the air. –About half my asthmatic pts have complained that the new MDIs with HFA propellant are not as effective as the old CFC propelled units.
And re: the ozone hole: more UV penetration actually increases the forces of evolution (that’s biologically good) in “unprotected” species and has minimal effect on those of us who wear scales, feathers, hair or clothes. So, where’s the problem anyways?
If The Sierra Club is involved then lies will abound. They are eco-terrorists.
Oh- and I forgot to add an interesting bit of history: prior to its politicization (cf- “Reefer Madness”) smoking marijuana was the recommended treatment of choice for asthma.
One person dies of Asthma every 7 hours, on average, in the UK. 250,000 people die of the desease every year, worldwide. If just 10% of the money thrown at so called climatologists to produce their endless stream of garbage pseudo-science was spent on Asthma research we could probably save 200.000 of those people, reduce the hospital costs of the repeated emergency hospital emissions, the distress of families watching their children die on the ground before their eyes and immeasurably reduce the costs of care for elderly sufferers like myself.
Think about it Trenberth et al next time you apply for a grant.
wow those asthma pumps are more powerful then a solar flare? That’s what destroys ozone!
http://getdemotivated.com/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2902&g2_serialNumber=1 .
It is the same kind of madness as the fuss about surgical anesthetic gases.
So, essentially, they want to off the kids today to save the great great great grand kids in the future. Perhaps they ought to funnel some more money into sex-ed instead. :p
@Dave Springer on September 23, 2011 at 11:56 pm:
You should like this then. Remember the delta smelt, that little fish that is being “protected” by denying irrigation water to California farms, resulting in the destruction of established orchards and vineyards, even though it is genetically identical to a smelt found elsewhere?
Federal scientists giving false testimony? The testimony of a zealot, preaching certain doom unless their plan is enacted? The mind boggles! What’s next, they’ll accuse a government-funded anti-coal activist and Climate Scientist™ of altering the historical temperature record to promote his anti-development neo-Malthusian agenda?
What should happen when such scientists so betray the public trust?
We shall now breathlessly await for Mann, Trenberth, SkepSci et al to insist federal judges be blocked from criticizing scientists due to the “chilling effect” it’ll have on scientific research.
The Montreal Protocol began under Ronald Reagan in 1987. In 1988, the drug companies that sold inhaled meds formed IPAC. They knew they were less than a decade away from losing their patents on various CFC-propelled asthma/COPD inhaled blockbuster meds such as albuterol. They knew they could continue to charge brand prices on these meds by embracing the Montreal Protocol and pushing for the ban of CFC as a propellant, which is exactly what they did.
Millions of patients around the world now suffer every day as a result of the poorly-tested HFA-propelled replacements, which have been shown to be inferior in virtually all clinical trials and FDA MedWatch data. Many physicians support our campaign to keep these lifesaving CFC inhalers.
This did not have to happen, and it would not have happened, were it not for the Clinton/Gore/Browner (EPA) desire to ram this (Decision IX/19 Part 5) through the Ninth meeting of the Parties of the Montreal Protocol in 1997.
CFC inhalers release small amounts of propellant that, in and of themselves, can’t possibly perceptibly damage the ozone layer. In addition, malignant melanomas are caused primarily by UV-A waves, NOT UV-B waves. The ozone layer ONLY blocks UV-B waves.
It was proven that just FOUR Space Shuttle launches did more harm to the ozone layer than the entire US patient population did in one year of CFC inhaler use. When was the last time you heard anyone object to the commercialization of space travel due to ozone layer concerns?
To help us get a medical exemption to the Clean Air Act to bring back CFC inhalers (and stop the needless suffering and death of a lot of adults and children), and help deliver a death blow to junk science, please sign our petition at SaveCFC.com
As an asthmatic, this angers me in ways that I cannot express and expect to show up in this thread. The reason the epinephrine inhalers are so popular is because they work better, faster, and cost less than the prescription. Also if you find yourself on empty you don’t have to get a doctors appointment which costs even more money. Keep in mind this is to save yourself from an ER visit or death.
And to add to guidoLaMota’s point the new inhalers have crap for propellant, and you lose half or more of the doses due to insufficient pressure, while yes the L-Albuterol is the best asthma treatment the delivery method sucks, and the regular Albuterol mainly due to the R-Albuterol content can be just as damaging as epinephrine if not worse.
ferd berple at 8:02 pm: “what happened between 1940 and 1950 that caused US heart disease to spike? …. Artificial food introduced during WWII.”
Margarine and vegetable shortening (aka Crisco) both became dominant during WWII due to rationing and shortages of dairy butter. Both concoctions are made from hydrogenated vegetable oils.
There is widespread controversy in nutritional circles about the detrimental effects of hydrogenated vegetable fats and other substances (wheat, corn, high fructose corn syrup) on American health. The nutritional debate is similar to climate in many ways.
I think most people here realize that this is just the tip of the eco-control iceberg. And you can rest assured that the rules put in place for the “little people” won’t affect the climate/eco elites at the top. Government “scientists” making six figure salaries and rich activists like Al Gore can well afford to bear the costs they wish to impose on the rest of us…
And I’m STILL waiting for the climate
hypocritesscientists/elites to STOP using ALL products made from petroleum (along will ALL energy derived from fossil fuels)…Heh, remember ‘made from poly-unsaturated fats’. What they didn’t tell you was that the process of ‘making’ was to saturate the fats.
============
The CFC-containing inhalers were banned in the UK some time ago (EU rules & regs, IIRC).
Salbutamol relievers were changed by 2007.
Certainly there have been a number of complaints that the new CFC-free inhalers aren’t as effective as the old ones.
It’s nothing to do with pollution, but all with creating a nice little earner for doctors and bureaucrats by handing them a monopoly over a treatment that was up until now self-administered.
Vetenarians run the same type of scams, they hog a monopoly over a range of simple, safe drugs that could be trivially self-administrated for a few pence, so they can blackmail pet owners into spending hundreds of pounds just for the pointless visit(s) (which also stresses the already sick animal…)
Dishman says: September 23, 2011 at 7:33 pm
[The patent holder on the non-CFC inhalers had a better lobbying campaign.]
Patent expired, need new law to ban usefull and effective current product that is no longer patented in order to create market for new patented product. The fact that the science does not support the ban is not important.
See also: DDT
The article makes this specious argument “…stop using substances that deplete the ozone layer, a region in the atmosphere that helps block harmful ultraviolet rays from the Sun.”
Of course the ozone layer blocks harmful ultraviolet rays from the Sun but what does that have to do with the “ozone hole”? Anyone exposing flesh in a polar region where the the “ozone hole” occurs is going to be more subject to frostbite than sunburn.
From my old memory, the ozone hole was first noticed by a Dutch group of scientists in the early 50’s, before widespread CFC use. And as I understand things, the jet streams do not allow much mixing of NH and SH air (others may know a lot more about this) so … As most of the CFC’s were produced and released in the NH, how did all that nasty bad stuff get to the South Pole and clobber the ozone? And what effect does Mt. Erebus (an active volcano in Antarctica) have on the atmosphere, regularly spewing tons of SO2? Which may not be quite as bad for ozone, but still can take it out. Finally, just how much CFC comes from inhalers? I used Freon driven air brushes back in the 60’s, gotta believe one can of that held far more than a box of asthma relievers.
I had symptoms of asthma roughly twenty-five years ago in late Spring, brought on by rather severe hayfever, and wound up purchasing and occasionally using an inhaler. Just having it could have helped reduce symptoms, as stress is one possible trigger for asthma. I believe the symptoms may have returned the following year, though weren’t as bad, and I also believe I still had the same inhaler. Afterward that, though, there was never a repeat of the asthma.
To even think of having to go to the expense and trouble of visiting a doctor for that is absurd, and an outrage.
I’m a little confused by the original post and the comments. I thought the decision to phase-out these CFCs was made when the U.S. signed the Montreal Protocol, which basically committed us (for better or worse) to phasing out production and use of certain chemicals over different time frames. However, most of the comments suggest that EPA/Obama made the decision to eliminate the use in inhalers. Which is correct?
Where to start? First off, I still firmly believe the CFC ban was nearly pure pseudo-scientific bullshit. I’ll reference this article from the American Thinker:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_cfc_ban_global_warmings_pi.html
Removing CFC propellants from metered dose inhalers (MDI) was an act by the FDA in accordance with EPA restrictions which went into place with the signing of the Montreal Protocol many years earlier. CFCs were to be removed from MDIs by the end of 2007. This included a wide range of drugs including beta-2 agonists like albuterol and salmeterol as well as corticosteroids such as fluticasone and triamcinolone. It did not address OTC MDIs. There is only one OTC MDI and it delivers a metered dose of epinephrine (i.e. “adrenalin”). Ironically, this drug should be Rx-only and the much safer albuterol should be OTC. The reason albuterol remains Rx-only is largely a function of insurance prescription reimbursement and the jealous control over medications that physicians wish to maintain. From a pharmacologic and clinical safety perspective there is absolutely no good reason why albuterol MDIs and folic acid (in dosage units greater than 1 mg or more) should be Rx-only while drugs like epinephrine MDIs, regular insulin and ibuprofen are available OTC. The reason this situation exists is economic, not scientific.
When the CFC ban finally came to MDIs the pharmaceutical industry responded by coming up with an alternative propellant – hydrofluoroalkanes (HFA). This made dirt cheap generic inhalers like albuterol MDI suddenly patented, proprietary drugs by virtue of the propellant. The cost of asthma maintenace nearly tripled. CFCs are nearly ideal propellants for inhaled medications as they are stable and chemically and biologically inert. But the pharmaceutical industry didn’t put up too much of a fuss over this ridiculous regulation because it was a money maker for them – both the brand and generic manufacturers. They have recaptured the R&D that went into HFA development, testing and approval many times over since 2007. This is a classic example of sacrificing cost-effective management of human disease at the alter of environmental PC.
In 2006 and early 2007 several generic manufacturers will still producing CFC MDIs. They stopped not because they ran out of active ingredients, but because the CFCs were no longer available. I have had mild asthma for over 30 years and I can attest that the new HFA formulation don’t work as well (even though they cost much more…for the good of the “ozone layer”). An though normally I would be the LAST person to defend Obama, this one really wasn’t his fault. This BS started with Clinton and continued through the Bush years. There may have been a defensible position for removing CFCs from aerosol can products, less of one for banning them as refrigerants, even less of one to ban them as fire containment systems, but absolutely NO good reason for removing them as propellants for medications.
Robert Doyle ,
I’ve seen the ALA commercial . I have a gut feeling that the funding for it probably originated at the EPA .
At peak usage in 1996, global CFC inhaler emissions were between 9,000 and 10,000 tons/year, which represented less than 1% of total CFC emissions.
If anyone knows how much total sratospheric ozone there is, or how much stratospheric ozone is created and destroyed every year naturally, please reply.
jphilips says:
September 23, 2011 at 10:30 pm
Philip Bradley says: September 23, 2011 at 7:46 pm
…The incidence of asthma is strongly correlated with air cleanliness. The cleaner the air the higher the incidence of asthma.
I believe cigarettes are beneficial to asthmatics too!!!
– ridiculous.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Living in a second hand smoke environment allowed me to be the ONLY non-asthmatic in my maternal line.
Tests done by my allergist showed I had the highest IgE level he had ever seen. He could not believe I was not an asthmatic. He also warned me never to give blood because those high IgE levels could kill the recipient.
It is well know that small doses of an allergen allows an individual to build up immunity. So there is a well documented basis for “dirty” air being beneficial to asthmatics.
Pollution has been reduced by a huge amount since I was a kid in the 1950’s and 60’s. This idiocy is in the nit-picking money making category not the protecting the environment category.
Of note is the Rockefeller (Banking/oil) ownership of the pharmaceutical industry – http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rockefeller_Foundation
Yes, the EPA has given the ALA $20 million over the years, at least.
Further to my hypothesis, per this September 2003 paper by Henk Eskes, Arjo Segers, and Peter van Velthoven of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), De Bilt, The Netherlands, “Ozone Forecasts of the Stratospheric Polar Vortex Splitting Event in September 2002”
“The southern hemisphere major warming event in September 2002 has led to a break-up of the vortex in the middle and higher stratosphere and a corresponding splitting of the ozone hole.
“the splitting of the vortex had a dramatic impact on the ozone hole, reducing it’s size and mixing ozone depleted vortex air with midlatitude air.”
“In September 2002 the South Pole vortex showed a rapidly developing distortion and a subsequent split of the vortex in two more or less equal parts (Allen et al., 2003 ). On September 18 the vortex looked normal. It was displaced slightly away from the pole, but not in an unusual manner. From 21 to 23 September the vortex rapidly elongated. The process resulted in a split vortex on 24-26 September. At this time the ozone hole had been transformed into two smaller ”ozone holes” of nearly equal size. After the split the vortex remnant on the Southern Atlantic slowly gained strength and moved back to the South Pole during the first two weeks of October. The second remnant vortex over the Pacific rapidly weakened and the ozone depleted air mixed with mid-latitude air with higher ozone mixing ratios.”
“In late September and early October, Syowa is located inside the (split) vortex. Ozone values remain low until about 10 October. Then the small remaining vortex moves from the South Atlantic towards the South pole, and ozone values increase. The ozone history at Arrival Heights is very different. As soon as the vortex starts to elongate, around 21 September, the ozone hole edge passes and ozone values jump from about 170 DU to high values of about 400 DU within one day. Ozone stays very high for more than two weeks and only around 10-12 October low, ozone depleted column values of less than 200 DU are abruptly found again. This is again related to the migration of the center of the small vortex to the pole. After this the vortex weakens and moves in the direction of South America, and the ozone at Arrival Heights reaches values of around 350 DU.”
http://www.knmi.nl/~eskes/papers/jas1039_eskes_pp.pdf
You are correct. This is one thing we can’t blame Obama for. Reagan (who was rolled by George Shultz, his Sec. of State) started the Montreal Protocol, but there was NO determination at the start to ban CFC inhalers. The drug cos. pushed for that and when Clinton became president, the drug cos. (IPAC) joined forces with them to ban CFC inhalers by ramming through Decision IX/19 Part 5 at the Ninth meeting of the Parties (Montreal Protocol) in 1997. Carol Browner EPA) forced this through quietly, and here we are.
I guess it’s time to chime in again with a reminder that you’re dealing with the religion of Environmentalism here, not the science of environmentalism. It’s much easier to understand the motivation of these people when you view it in this way. They worship Nature, Mother Earth, Gaia, Eywa, or whatever name chosen to deitize the environment. They use a distorted form of science in the same way Creationists distort science to “prove” their beliefs. When they say “You need to do what we say,” it’s not much different from any religion that preaches you need to live your life by their tenets or you’ll be damned somehow. Their primary concern is not human life, but pleasing their deity. Even a cursory examination of their beliefs and actions shows this is true. I could even say they practice human sacrifice, like religions of old. Ban DDT, whether the science supports it or not. Millions of Africans die and they don’t care because the environment has been saved. Ban certain inhaler propellents. More people with asthma die. No problem. Gaia demands it. “Save the environment” is just a modern version of “pleasing God.”
Of course none of these people will agree that they are practicing a religion. They will claim their beliefs are the truth and the rest of us just need to be converted. Fundamentalists always act this way. Many will claim to be atheists. But their disbelief is limited to a traditional Christian type concept of god.
These people cannot be made to alter their beliefs by reason anymore than a true believer in any of the traditional religions can be made to abandon their beliefs. In order to solve this problem, it must be addressed in the same way western culture treats all religion, not by trying to eradicate it, but by keeping it separate from politics and government. The general population must be made to understand what we’re dealing with here, preferably through education, so we can correctly identify it and work to get it out of government at all levels.
If we can’t do this, and the religion of Environmentalism completely takes over, then the world will be plunged into another period of oppression and misery, which is what always happens when one religion runs everything.
ferd berple at 8:02 pm: “what happened between 1940 and 1950 that caused US heart disease to spike? …. Artificial food introduced during WWII.”
_____________________________________________________
Garry at 6:03 am
…..There is widespread controversy in nutritional circles about the detrimental effects of hydrogenated vegetable fats and other substances (wheat, corn, high fructose corn syrup) on American health. The nutritional debate is similar to climate in many ways
______________________________________________________
You beat me to it.
Some where in my reading I came across info that the American diet went from 27-30 grams of carbs to over 400 grams with an increase in diabetes and heart disease but I can not find it.
I did come across this interesting study on the subject:
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 86, No. 2, 276-284, August 2007
© 2007 American Society for Nutrition
REVIEW ARTICLE
Low-carbohydrate nutrition and metabolism http://www.ajcn.org/content/86/2/276.full
And note that the decrease in ozone concentration during the 80s and 90s;
http://www.theozonehole.com/images/ozoned30.gif
corresponds with “several studies (including Waugh and Randel 1999; Waugh et al. 1999; Karpetchko et al. 2005; Black and McDaniel 2007) have indicated a trend over the 1980s and 1990s toward a later vortex breakdown.”
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7598/is_20091115/ai_n42654411/
This is a good paper exploring the Polar Vortices;
http://www.columbia.edu/~lmp/paps/waugh+polvani-PlumbFestVolume-2010.pdf
and the chart on page 10 shows the vortex break-up dates for the Northern Hemisphere since 1960 and Southern Hemisphere since 1979.
Thank you for that information, Arthur…
Ferd Berple is right wrt salt in the diet of healthy people. The problem is that since the association with lung cancer and tobacco was proved the “scientists” have decided that every ill known to mankind is caused by a lifestyle choice or not doing as we are told by said “scientists”. Like I have said many times here, the health fascists are as deluded as the climate ones. Our Chief Medical Officer stated that we would have up to 60,000 deaths last winter due to swine flu, the actual number in UK was about 300. We are having children labelled as obese because they are a few pounds overweight. I was told in all seriousness by a health professional when my son was born that if I picked him up within an hour of having a cigarette, the nicotine in my breath could cause him to suffer cot death and all my children would get asthma and glue ear. I stopped smoking four years ago, my children are 24, 22 and 16 none of them has asthma or has ever had glue ear. If you drink more than 14 units of alcohol (women) or 21 units (men) a week, you will get liver disease. The list is endless, the pharmaceutical companies are rubbing their collective hands and medical costs have spiralled.
Eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, take exercise, don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t have casual unprotected sex and you will live forever…………………..but would you want to?
Here is a counterpoint to my hypothesis. They claim “The Recipe For Ozone Loss”
“To summarise then, we have looked at the ‘ingredients’ or conditions necessary for the destruction of ozone that we see in Antarctica. The same applies more or less to the loss of ozone in the Arctic stratosphere during winter. Although in this case the loss is not nearly so severe.
To recap then, the requirements for ozone loss are:
The polar winter leads to the formation of the polar vortex which isolates the air within it.
Cold temperatures form inside the vortex; cold enough for the formation of Polar Stratospheric Clouds (PSCs). As the vortex air is isolated, the cold temperatures and the PSCs persist.
Once the PSCs form, heterogeneous reactions take place and convert the inactive chlorine and bromine reservoirs to more active forms of chlorine and bromine.
No ozone loss occurs until sunlight returns to the air inside the polar vortex and allows the production of active chlorine and initiates the catalytic ozone destruction cycles. Ozone loss is rapid. The ozone hole currently covers a geographic region a little bigger than Antarctica and extends nearly 10km in altitude in the lower stratosphere.”:
http://www.atm.ch.cam.ac.uk/tour/part3.html
I do not understand the need for a chemical process to explain the ozone hole. “The word hole isn’t literal; no place is empty of ozone. Scientists use the word hole as a metaphor for the area in which ozone concentrations drop below the historical threshold of 220 Dobson Units.”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/ozone.php
My ozone displacement hypothesis provides a logical explanation for the formation and dissipation of the “ozone hole”. The counterpoint article cited above affirms that “Air in the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere descends into the polar vortex”
http://www.atm.ch.cam.ac.uk/tour/tour_images/antvortex.gif
and the EPA affirms that air towards the top of the stratosphere has a lower concentration of ozone:
http://www.epa.gov/ozone/science/images/FIG-FAQ01.JPG
Hence one would expect to see “ozone concentrations drop below the historical threshold of 220 Dobson Units.” within a polar vortex. I see no need for chemical processes to explain the drop in concentration and Occam’s Razor would suggest chemical processes should be eliminated when simple displacement effectively explains the “ozone hole” phenomenon.
I use an inhaler to prevent cold-induced asthma for winter morning bike rides.
I honestly didn’t know that over the counter options existed. Albuterol is probably the most common non-cfc prescription and the generic versions of it are basically free. With my HMO, the co-pay is higher than the cost of the drug itself.
I think banning the CFC versions is perfectly reasonable, so long as non-CFC direct competitors exist. It really isn’t something worth panicking about.
“Asteroid Hit Could Force Us to Live like Vampires. According to a new study, an asteroid splashdown in one of Earth’s oceans could trigger a chemical cycle that would destroy half the ozone layer. The enormous loss of protection against the sun’s ultraviolet radiation would probably force humans into a vampire-style existence of staying indoors during the hours of daylight.” http://tinyurl.com/4xyczae
——————————————————-
And asthmatics living as vampires would need…
Vlad the Inhaler
Unfortunately, the HFA inhaled meds do not work as well as the CFC inhaled meds for many, many patients. You are very lucky that they work well for you. Virtually all results from clinical trials, FDA MedWatch data, and reports from thousands of patients, physicians, nurses and pharmacists support the fact that HFA inhalers of all meds- not just albuterol- are inferior in safety and effectiveness.
re:Andrew Harding
A Russian friend tells me, “If you don’t drink or smoke, you die healthy.”
(but you still die)
As for carbs: The body, particularly the brain, runs on carbs. The trick is to eat a bunch of good stuff and get enough exercise and sleep. Duh.
This action is further proof that bureaucrats are gaining more control over our lives. When you realize this is coupled with rampant insanity spreading through Washington DC–we’re in deep trouble! The very people who would do anything “for the children” are throwing them under the bus to promote the Gaia religion. It’s sick and criminal.
guidoLaMoto says:
September 24, 2011 at 2:30 am
Oh- and I forgot to add an interesting bit of history: prior to its politicization (cf- “Reefer Madness”) smoking marijuana was the recommended treatment of choice for asthma.
Study on this:
Hemp demonisation another success story for the pharmaceutical and oil etc. corporate power influence – attacked from all sides because of its unique character as all round food, medicine, clothing, paper, bio-fuel, easily grown renewable – the first levi jeans were made from it – and same routine, took their influence to the UN after getting it banned in the US and forced a ban on it world-wide. They used a name change tactic because as hemp it was well known and used extensively nationwide, calling it marijuana from the mexican and associating it with mexicans and negroes and whites therefore on the skids by associating with these. An extraordinary campaign.
There’s a good documentary on the history, “Marijuana True Story” by Massimo Mazzucco, it says on the credits – “Please purchase a DVD at Amazon.com and support the author. Then feel free to copy and distribute.”
Medicinally it’s got properties which do the same things as our body’s defence system, iirc, it said uniquely to hemp, in the way it fights cancer etc. and so able to really compensate for the overload we have in our modern world. The cold pressed oil and the protein powder left over from that an excellent food source – the omega3/6 combination also good for bronchial/asthma problems.
A couple more interesting links:
http://phoenixtears.ca/articles/the-feds-finally-recognize-the-anti-cancer-potential-of-cannabis
http://phoenixtears.ca/articles/hemp-medicines-political-exile-at-large/
Various presidents had studies done on it and all came back with positive response to its use, they continued to squash it anyway. Until there are enough people willing to stick their necks out against the corporate takeover of goverments from within the system, I can’t see much chance of change in this or in the global warming scam.
“HALOE data show, however, a surprising phenomenon occurring in the center of the Antarctic vortex. Air from very high altitudes descends vertically through the center of the vortex, moving air to lower altitudes over several months.”
“The ozone hole is in the center of a spiraling mass of air over the Antarctic that is called the polar vortex. The vortex is not stationary and sometimes moves as far north as the southern half of South America, taking the ozone hole with it.”
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/HALOE-Ozone.html
“Figure 4 shows the relationship between the Vortex Vanishing Date and the Ozone Hole Vanishing Date. The relationship between the ozone hole and vortex vanishing dates is such that the longer the vortex lasts the closer the ozone hole vanishing date is to the vortex vanishing date. Unlike 2008 in which both dates were longer than any previous year, the dates for 2009 are in the “middle of the pack”.”
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/winter_bulletins/sh_09/Fig_4.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/winter_bulletins/sh_09/