Thunderstorms Lead to Asthma Attacks

Bill Kendrick writes "New York Times (free reg, blah blah) reports on a study that finds thunderstorms can cause asthma attacks. They suspect rain and gusts dislodge fungus spores into the air, and suggest folks with sever asthma "stay indoors" after thunderstorms."

Comments

The cause *appeared* to be fungi spores

[Muhammar]

...because fungi spores were the only allergenic stuff found to be increased on stormy days. That is, from the stuff that we know about. This is loose, loose connection: it can be also a sudden air pressure drop, sudden spike in humidity, electric discharge or static electricity causing increased smog particle agglomeration, and so on. During severe storms, there is also increased incidence of heart attacks and strokes - and the fungi spores are hardly to blame for this. The above canadian study seems pretty non-interesting, and it is taken out of context by NYTimes. "Dr. Dales said that hospital visits for asthma were 15 percent more frequent on days with thunderstorms than on other days." 15% increase during stormy days - that means 8 instead of 7 asthma ER patients. Big deal! Things like cocroaches in the kitchen, neighbour smoker or fabric softener may have bigger impact on life of asthmatics than storms. I do not read NYTimes science section, because they are sensational and reliably lame.