This Makes Good Sense

[larrynz]

www.rockymountainnews.com:80/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5593779,00.html
By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News
June 20, 2007
One in eight Coloradans wheezes, hacks, coughs, finds breaths hard to come by. But only about a third of those sufferers realize they have the deadly but treatable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Colorado lung specialists hope to use tobacco tax money to vault the state above the other 49 in treating and preventing COPD, a term that refers to emphysema, bronchitis and similar diseases.

At a kickoff event Tuesday, -Keith Breese, Colorado COPD Coalition manager, said Colorado's is the first statewide action plan to combat COPD, the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States.

Some 1,900 Coloradans a year die of COPD; an additional 1,800 die of something else but with COPD as a secondary cause. The numbers don't include those with lung cancer, even though people with COPD are six times more likely to get lung cancer, Breese said.

The goal is to lower COPD deaths here by 10 percent in three years.

So far, $300,000 has been spent in three years, but the amount has to triple for education and early diagnosis to take hold, Breese said.

Some 85 percent of people with COPD are longtime smokers, yet it also can hit nonsmokers, especially people exposed to environmental agitators, for example farmers breathing dust, factory workers breathing milled particles or mechanics breathing diesel fumes.

The highest COPD levels are on the eastern plains, where farmers inhale nitrogen and soil and where ranchers breathe waste from feedlots.

Another hot spot is Commerce City, where the smoking rate may be higher but so is the heavy industry.

[Blossom/Jackie W.]

Good for them and their aggressive/forward thinking! I hope they succeed to their reduction %

[morningstar]

Wow, this is great. Might just be the break COPD needs. What is it they say every journey starts with the first step. Hopefully this is COPD first step.

[LindaNY]

It's good to hear that, Larry.
Colorado does have the best Hospital in the world for pulmonary disease at National Jewish.

www.njc.org/

That is where the infamous TB patient went after he snuck back into the country from Europe.

[maryaz]

I had read that earlier with a positive mind. There are a lot of things happening now. It takes all these steps to get it together. Glad you posted it Larry/nz as I was thinking about it and couldn't decide.