posted 07-16-2001 02:58 PM            

While I certainly don't want to start a "flame war" or cast any aspersions on your physician friend, may I hazard a guess as to a reason for his lack of concern?

Most meteorologists and other weather observers believe that all of those cloud formations can be easily explained away by natural weather conditions; and the increase in the magnitude of such formations can be explained by the almost two-fold increase in the number of aircraft flights over the past ten years.

Regarding his information (or lack thereof) about illnesses around the country: physicians are pretty specialized; an orthopod or plastic surgeon probably doesn't know much more about trends in epidemiology than we do - unless his patient is too sick to come in for the facelift!

In my opinion, the best first-hand source of information about things such as respiratory diseases would probably be someone working in an HMO, like a family practice doc or RN. They're the ones who actually see the sick folks come in every day, and would have better insights on whether there's been a rise in such complaints -- corrected for seasonal variations.

Regards,