ASTHMA: THE HIDDEN KILLER

MODEL KRISSY TAYLOR'S DEATH UNDERSCORES HOW LETHAL AND DECEPTIVE THIS COMMON AILMENT CAN BE

At first the coroner could not tell what killed Krissy Taylor, the 17-year-old model who died mysteriously in her Florida home four weeks ago. Krissy's lungs appeared to be normal. Her heart seemed fine. There was no sign of alcohol, cocaine, amphetamines or other drugs in her blood. But when the pathologist looked through a microscope at tissue samples from the teenager's body, he noted that the bronchioles, the tiniest airways in the lungs, were inflamed and scarred. These telltale signs, he reported last week, indicated that Taylor, like more than 6,000 other Americans each year, had died of a fairly...

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