A Prescription for Disaster

Ronald David Weiss, MD

Diplomate, American Board of Internal Medicine

May 29, 2006

“This is the worst allergy season ever,” I emphatically repeat to my patients every spring since I began my practice of medicine fourteen years ago. As the patients nod their heads in agreement, barely able to see me through the pools of water welling up in their turgid red eyes, a cadence of sneezing interrupts the wheezing and cough which rattles from their chests. Unable to sleep, work or engage in any meaningful activity, these patients come to my office desperately seeking relief from seasonal springtime allergies. What I have noticed over the years is that as our winters become warmer and wetter; the ensuing spring allergy seasons have become increasingly ferocious, coaxing our budding trees and flowers to pour forth enormous amounts of pollen. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas which is emitted by burning fossil fuels, is thought to be the main culprit responsible for global warming. It is also thought that carbon dioxide prompts plants to produce more pollen and that pollutants in our air magnify the allergic effects of this pollen.

               In the past three years especially, I have noted an alarming increase in the spontaneous development of springtime asthma in patients who previously have never had asthma. In the past week alone, I have had to give asthma treatments to seventy-two new patients who had previously never had breathing problems, and seven of my patients were rushed to the ER during the night because their breathing became so labored. What is most disturbing this spring though, is that many of the newest and strongest antihistamine allergy and asthma medicines have become completely ineffective, forcing me to prescribe steroids, the prescription of last resort in the treatment of severe allergies and asthma. 

              As I write one steroid prescription after another, my thoughts turn to cause and effect; of American energy policy and global warming. I begin to think about our misguided politicians’ offer to give one-hundred dollars to every American so we can buy more gasoline and pour it into our SUVs, and the Bush administration’s eagerness to tap into the Alaskan wilderness to momentarily slake America’s great thirst for oil. I then picture the small lake which is forming where the North Pole used to be, and I ask myself: Have our decision-makers gone mad, or do they just not understand the potential for disaster that lurks behind their actions. 

              As a concerned physician, I would advise against continuing to burn fossil fuels as our primary source of energy. There is a much safer and clean alternative, and that is nuclear fission. 
France’s experience is helpful here.  In 1973, OPEC quadrupled the price of a barrel of oil. At that time the great majority of France’s electricity was produced by oil-burning plants. To liberate France from OPEC’s grip and to foster her energy independence, the country’s leaders decided to embark on a nuclear power plant building campaign. Today, at least 76% of all of France’s electricity is produced by nuclear plants and France has become an electricity exporter to other European nations. And in large part, as a result of France’s reliance on nuclear power, the average Frenchman is responsible for producing just one-third of the greenhouse gasses that the average American produces.
No greenhouse gasses or air pollution is produced from nuclear fission and the only waste product is the spent radioactive fuel which can be safely buried and after a period of about fifty years, becomes inert. Despite the impressive safety record of nuclear plants in responsibly governed nations, many of those opposed to nuclear energy continue to worry about accidental exposure to radiation from nuclear plant malfunctions, nuclear waste, or these days even from terrorist attacks upon nuclear plants, while I am most afraid that a terrorist funded by an oil exporting nation will detonate a dirty nuclear bomb in Times Square.

The reality is that many Americans die each year from asthma and asthma-related respiratory illnesses and each year asthma incidence and mortality worsens despite medical science’s advances in allergy and asthma treatment. I know of no American civilian who has been exposed to radioactivity from a nuclear power plant and died.

Moreover, if America continues on its current course, I predict that in the twenty- first century, many, many more of our people will die fighting to obtain oil, and by the polluting effects of burning that oil.      

              I think that the best thing that could possibly happen to America is for a gallon of gas to rise to four or five dollars per gallon. It would force many Americans to abandon their SUV and consider a smaller, more fuel efficient car, public transportation, or even walking, which by the way, would do wonders for our obesity epidemic. Most importantly, it could force us to embrace nuclear energy, just as France did years ago. Economists may cry out that gasoline at five dollars per gallon could derail our economy, sending up the cost of even the most basic of consumer goods; but if they think that paying an additional buck or so for a gallon of milk is expensive, just wait until our broken healthcare system is forced to care for thousands, if not millions of Americans who suddenly can not breath.

               As I lock up my office tonight and walk into the spring evening, I will take a deep breath and be glad to fill my lungs - I have allergies but do not have asthma (yet), and I will be reminded of Fran Landesman’s verse from that old song –

Doctors once prescribed a tonic.

Sulfur and molasses was the dose.  Didn’t help one bit.

My condition must be chronic.

Spring can really hang you up the most.