A breath of fresh air?.

The rise in childhood asthma continues to cause concern. Treatments improve, but the problem of prevention remains unsolved. However, Profs.John Stanford and Graham Rook (University College, London, School of Medicine) are working on a theory that aggressive domestic cleaning agents, by destroying the bacteria to which people were once commonly exposed, are depriving the immune system of its learning experience. They believe that information gained early in life may be important in enabling the immune system to discriminate between what is harmless and it would otherwise ignore. Antibiotics, too, may be responsible in causing over-sensitivity of the immune system by killing bacteria with which it would normally have to contend. Profs. Stanford and Rook have developed a vaccine to introduce the immune system to a range of harmless bacteria, thereby establishing a balanced response. As a treatment for asthma sufferers, the results are encouraging. But it will be years before it is known whether such a vaccine will provide a means of prevention.