To the Editor:
Michael Fumento's attempt to blame the disproportionate increase in asthma among African-Americans on dried cockroach excrement plays to a stereotype of minorities living in squalor -- that their life-threatening respiratory disease is a result of their own sloth.
It would be far more useful to look -- as the Environmental Protection Agency has -- at continued poor urban air quality caused by the packed freeways carrying suburban commuters past inner-city communities and smoking diesel buses rumbling through them.
Ozone is a powerful cellular irritant that causes respiratory inflammation and spasms in the lungs' air passages. It is especially dangerous to people with asthma. The problem is particularly acute in poor areas, where there are fewer air conditioners, more open windows and lots of children playing outside.
Already this summer we have seen a huge number of ozone alert days in cities all over the country. With August the peak month for ozone alerts, we can expect the worst is yet to come.
JON COIFMAN
Program Director Environmental Media Services
Washington, July 1, 1998
To the Editor:
Michael Fumento (Op-Ed, June 30) draws attention to inhaled cockroach excrement as a potential cause of asthma, possibly accounting for higher asthma incidences in urban settings than in wealthier suburbs. But cockroach populations have not exploded in recent decades, begging the question of why cockroach allergen may be a growing problem.
Part of the answer may lie in reduced ventilation. Typical post-World War II school construction methods and efforts to reduce heating and cooling costs by reducing outdoor air intake have contributed to a general decline in school ventilation in the decades of asthma increase.
Less fresh air raises the airborne concentration of contaminants from pests living in a school.
Giving schools the training and tools necessary to evaluate and tune ventilation systems might easily pay for itself in reduced asthma.
ERIC GLATSTEIN
Chicago, July 1, 1998The writer is an environmental engineer at the Environmental Protection Agency.
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