The Neville Brothers will not be closing this year’s New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Due to Aaron Neville’s severe asthma, he is following his doctor’s recommendation not to return to New Orleans because of the possibility of contaminants in the air. While local sources say that there is no reason to be particularly concerned about asthma, residents offer empirical evidence otherwise as they leave the town they love because New Orleans is suffocating them.

Altercation, of the Hot Toddies choir, had such severe breathing difficulty last week that she was forced to go to Touro hospital’s emergency room for a steroid IV and a Nebulizer breathing treatment. Altercation is convinced that her asthma is caused by lead in the air, her most recent outbreak occurred last week after walking by a house as it was being sanded. She recognized the symptoms from a previous encounter with lead-based paint: perfectly round, clear balls of mucus. “I just want to go somewhere safe,” she says as she prepares to move to Arkansas this week.

Asthma is a chronic lung condition characterized by difficulty in breathing. Asthma sufferers have extra sensitive or hyper responsive airways. An asthma attack can be caused by many different toxins, one of which is mold. And although many people on the “isle of denial” say that there is no major cause for alarm, the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has done independent testing for mold spores twice since Katrina, reports otherwise. According to NRDC reports,

“Our testing revealed a significant mold problem in outdoor air in most of the flooded areas of the city. Mold spore counts in most flooded neighborhoods -- including New Orleans East, the Lower Ninth Ward, Bywater, Gentilly, Chalmette, Uptown/Carrollton and Mid-City -- were classified as "Very High," with estimated average daily spore counts over 50,000 spores per cubic meter. Levels in Lakeview were "High," according to the standard classifications of the National Allergy Bureau. These outdoor mold spore concentrations could easily trigger allergic or asthmatic reactions in sensitive people.”

But a Times Picayune article last Sunday reports that “New Orleans is no more hostile to asthma sufferers than it was before the storm.”

I understand the strong temptation to believe any information that seems like good news, but in light of the serious health risks involved we need to pay careful attention to the environment around us, especially because children suffer even greater risks for asthma than adults, often ending up in the ER after an asthma attack. We’ve always had problems with biohazardous materials such as asbestos and lead in New Orleans. Now is our chance to start out right.

(As I mentioned briefly in a previous blog, I wonder about the accountability of the contractors who are doing everything possible to build in haste. I hope that someone is monitoring their activities as well as waste disposal. Otherwise we’re going to have a whole lot of mess on our hands later on.)