Stop
this Asthma Disease
by: James Hughes-Onslow,
The Daily Express, 6th August 1996
The Health Secretary, Stephen DTorrell, has announced a five-year,
5 million (UK pound) research programme to identify the cause of
asthma. "There is no cure for asthma," says a spokesman
for the National Asthma Campaign. "One thing is certain: the
outlook for asthma research has never looked so good."
Yes, asthma research is doing well - it has a rosy future. But,
sadly, asthmatics do not. Once, asthma scarcely existed; now treating
it is a lucrative with more and more sufferers dependent on expensive
drugs.
God preserve asthmatics from the pharmaceutical industry.
When it was announced recently that Third World countries had fewer
asthmatics than developed countries, the irony was missed by experts
who said that it was modern life was too clean. Other specialists
say asthma is caused by pollution. The truth is western doctors
haven't got a clue.
In Soviet Russia, which was spared the grip of the pharmaceutical
lobby, Professor Konstantin Buteyko devised a system of breathing
exercises which combat asthma and hay fever effectively.
The basis of Buteyko is that we need carbon dioxide in our lungs
to process oxygen into the bloodstream.This is a physiological fact,
not mumbo-jumbo. Carbon dioxide is known to be connected with the
function of the nervous system. When asthmatics become tight-chested,
their bodies are trying to tell them to slow down, to take less
oxygen and more CO2.
Now they are treated with bronchodilators which have the reverse
effect, opening up the airways to allow more oxygen in and expelling
CO2. Because these inhalers are addictive, they become ever more
insidious..
For the pharmaceutical industry, Buteyko's method is bad news.
It requires no drugs at all. GPs are happy to hear about it but
they will not recommend it. And there is little incentive in the
pharmaceutical industry to cure the disease.
I have had prescriptions for Becotide (2 puffs twice a day), Ventolin
(for use in a crisis) and Intal (occasionally) for 17 years, and
I've had 3 serious asthma attacks.
Once I was taken unconscious to hospital, where I was put on a
drip and kept in for a week.
Now, after a one-week Buteyko course, I've given up all drugs.
I find I'm able to fight off an asthma or hay fever attack.
My 11-year-old son Andrew, who has never had an asthma attack but
often has an asthmatic cough, has been prescribed even more powerful
drugs. Children are often given even more powerful drugs than adults
because they can't be relied on to use inhalers accurately.
Yet the NAC says it cannot recommend Buteyko because "it has
not undergone properly controlled clinical trials which have been
published in a reputable medical journal". It is this attitude
which causes this epidemic.
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