In commemoration of the efforts by EPA Region 6 and the Healthy Indoor Environments 2000 Conference & Exhibition to bring asthma and allergy issues to the national spotlight, Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk proclaimed May 7-13 as Asthma Awareness Week. The announcement was made by Carl Edmund, EPA Region 6 director of multimedia planning and commitment division.

"The mayor has certainly commemorated the conference that we have here," said Edmund.

The proclamation covered the dates of the Healthy Indoor Environments Conference. The premiere of the Healthy Indoor Environments show brought together medical and IAQ professionals to improve the communication between the two sides for the study of asthma and allergies in the indoor environment.

Edmund then introduced the conference's featured speaker, Steve Page, director of EPA's Office of Radiation and Indoor Air in Washington, D.C.

"I wish we could bring this group of speakers and this full-house audience to each one of our regions," Page told conference attendees. "Our plan is to have a conference like this across the country in each of our EPA regions, bringing together different professional groups."

Page thanked attendees for the difficult, and not very glamorous work they do in providing healthy indoor environments.

"It's very important work," he said. "Having worked in the indoor environment for many, many years, I know that in these kinds of programs, when you have scientific debates on what does and doesn't cause asthma and the certainty of this or the uncertainty of that, it hasn't shown an effect on the public."

According to Page, EPA's long history of setting standards and understanding the science of outdoor air, makes the agency uniquely qualified to tackle the indoor environment, especially where asthma is concerned.

"I'm convinced, after spent 25 years in the indoor environment arena, that one of the biggest challenges we have is getting the people from the different disciplines to share knowledge. To make sure that people in the industry can speak and understand what the government is talking about, and vice versa. We all have different languages. But it's very important that these different disciplines work together and to develop a common language regarding the indoor environment."

Page stated that his biggest concern was not that medical professionals and IAQ remediators couldn't work together, but who would take on the role as facilitator between the two groups.

"What happens after this conference is over?" Page asked. "Who's going to be in a position of being able to help facilitate this shared information?"

Some of the information that Page shared with attendees was asthma statistics from a 1998 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Despite the burgeoning research, funding and programs devoted to asthma, Page said the number of people with asthma and the cost of the disease continues to grow at an astronomical rate.

"There are now 17.3 million people with asthma; think of it as the state of Texas all having the disease," he said.

One of the messages that Page continued to bring up was the sustained efforts needed by all segments of the marketplace to help the federal government solve the asthma problem.

"EPA is in this business for the foreseeable future," Page told attendees. "The political life in Washington goes up and down, and there are things that come and go in terms of national attention, but I believe that the agency will have a much greater role on the indoor air side because of government's [federal, state and local] level of concern toward these environmental issues. All the money I have in my Indoor Air Program right now is aimed at asthma- other research into radon and other issues has been shifted.

"The highest priority today in the indoor environment area is understanding and preventing asthma," Page continued. "EPA's responsibility in this issue is to develop a long-term public awareness campaign on asthma and indoor environmental triggers. Since EPA has the background in indoor environmental issues, the agency was a natural fit for this project."

In next month's issue, we'll report on the conference presentations of Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills, Dr. Eugene Cole, Dr. Claudia Miller, Dr. Harriett Burge, Dr. Richard Shaughnessy and others.