Quote Originally Posted by tyger View Post
Jeff, kinda interesting. Do you happen to know if the correlation was just an association too strong to ignore, or did it have follow-up causal implications? I wonder because we know that we can find all sorts of strong correlations among events that are related but unexplained.

I remember the study as I was on the research advisory board who got to review data and study methodology at the time he was doing his studies (and for all I know may still be). Since it was multivariate a lot of factors were looked at as parts of "smog", includine CO, O3 (ozone), free carbon dust (from coal burning), hydrocarbons, HS2 and derivatives, Nitrogen deriviatives (typical pollution stuff), pollen and other organics, etc... in addition to the rubber microparticles. In this inner city study populatiion, although many other factors were seen to have intermittent but inconsistent effects, the one single factor that tracted consistently with the number and severity of asthmatic attacks in children was the relative amount of these rubber microparticles in the air samples obtained across the metro area (he even tracked different populations and sampled areas in the same metro area). When they were up kids in those areas had an increase in presentations to their pediatricians and local hospitals/clinics with asthmatic symptoms. Overall fascinating stuff, but unfortunately not something we can directly impact unless we significantly cut down automotive activity, or move to the country for cleaner air, which in many of the worst cases was indeed his recommendation.