Posted by NickD (209.83.95.154) on April 16, 2000 at 08:02:58:
London has been burning coal since the 15th century, the Londoner loves his open fire according to this program, in 1952 with all the open fires, industry, 3 new coal fired electrical plants, and switching to non emission controlled diesel buses and cars, a warm front came in causing an inversion and 12,000 people were killed, autopsies revealed the air passages in the lungs of these victims were swelled shut, sound familiar? Britian still looses an average of 24,000 people a year due to air pollution, in 1952, the fog was yellow, no chemicals were mentioned, and neither were CH's, but judging by the color and the nature of the deaths, sounds like hydrogen sulphide gas, this gas was also tried during WWI to kill soldiers, very deadly.
The prgram followed the life of a young girl from London that became very ill, they did not use the word "sensitized", but her only cure was to leave London where she got married and raised a family, she missed London, returned 30 years later with reports that the air was clean, but died of lung inflamation shortly after her return, this was in 1991. Similar stories were mentioned in USA towns, mostly steel mill type towns, the worse in PA in 1948 which led to the formation of the EPA
I cannot help with the swelling of nasal passages that air pollution is the key problem to CH's and that we do get sensitized, our choice, either to drug ourselves to death or to find clean air, I went through the heavy drug (prescription) route only to suffer rebound, memory loss, heart pulsations, severe weigh gain, high colesterol count, limbs going numb, etc. until a new cure is found, I feel the only other option is clean air.