This can be a stressful time for children, as they leave summer behind and head back to school. For kids with asthma, the transition can be even more challenging.

According to the American Lung Association, nearly 11 percent of U.S. children starting school in the fall have asthma, a lung condition that accounts for nearly 13 million classroom days missed annually.

The ALA has compiled a checklist to help parents and their children with asthma prepare for the new year. Topping that list is a reminder that the government is phasing out the common CHC (chlorofluorocarbon) inhaler -- a type of albuterol inhaler -- to be replaced by an HFA (hydrofluoroalkane) inhaler, said to be less damaging to the ozone layer.

Indoor exposure to allergens and irritant pollutants plays an important role in asthma pathogenesis. Mounting evidence has suggested that indoor allergens and pollutants contribute significantly to asthma development and exacerbation. Such findings, coupled with the fact that most people spend nearly 90% of their time indoors, make the indoor environment an important area for research and prevention.

Indoor allergens include house dust mites, cockroach and pet allergens, and indoor dampness and mold. Children with asthma are more likely than those without asthma to have an allergic response to household allergens. Asthmatics commonly have a positive skin prick test to protein extracts from cockroaches, house dust mites, cat and dog dander, pollen, and common molds. A report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and a recent meta-analysis concluded that indoor dampness is associated with up to a 50% increase in asthma-related health outcomes in children. The report concluded that indoor dampness is associated with higher levels of allergens, such as mold, as well as with inflammatory agents, such as endotoxin.

For patients on mechanical ventilation, conventional measures used to monitor lung stress and strain may not tell the whole story, researchers here found.

Plateau pressure and tidal volume had little correlation with actual lung stress and strain, reported Luciano Gattinoni, M.D., of the Fondazione IRCCS--Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Mangiagalli, Regina Elena here, and colleagues in the second issue for August of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Draeger Medical, Inc. has announced its enhanced and exclusive partnership with Intensive Care On-Line Network (ICON) to provide 24x7 clinical and educational support for Draeger ventilation equipment, now including the Babylog 8000+.

ICON has supported Draeger Evita Series ventilator customers in the United States and Canada beginning in September 2001 and has since extended support to Savina and Babylog ventilator customers.

Improperly positioned tracheostomy tubes appear to be a "common and important" complication in patients being weaned from mechanical ventilation, clinicians report in August issue of the journal Chest.

Dr. Ulrich Schmidt of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and colleagues retrospectively studied 403 consecutive patients with a tracheostomy who had been admitted to an acute care unit "specializing in weaning from mechanical ventilation" over a 42-month period.

"The incidence of tracheostomy tube malposition was 10% in patients admitted to a respiratory acute care unit with prolonged respiratory failure following critical illness," Dr. Schmidt told Reuters Health.

Have you ever given attention to your breath? If not, observe how you inhale right now. Is it full and satisfying or is it shallow? What about your exhale, is it shorter or longer than your inhale?

Breath is not just the air that comes in and out of our nostrils. It is the "prana" or life force that gives vitality and sustains our very existence. Yet, we hardly pay attention to the full value of breath and take it for granted. The word breath is "animo" in Latin, which also means spirit. It is spirit that animates life.

Our first breath and last breath compose the parenthesis of our life span. In between birth and death, the breath connects the body with the mind and the rest of human faculties. Our first inhale on our own, which happens at the moment of birth, is the sign to the outer world that we are alive. At the end of life the breath may become more shallow, labored or painful before it comes to a halt at the last exhale.

The NHS in Wales was not sufficiently prepared for major changes to the way home oxygen services are provided, according to a new report published by the Auditor General for Wales.

Air Products Plc was awarded a five year contract, starting in February 2006, to integrate the supply of home oxygen services. In parallel with the new contract, the new arrangements envisaged specialist clinical assessment of patient need. But, according to today's report, the intended benefits of these changes have still not been fully realised.

A widely accepted therapy used by hospitals in treating patients with sepsis and other critical illnesses might not be helping these people, and could even be harming them, new evidence suggests.

The therapy, known as tight glucose control, calls for nurses to test patients' blood-sugar levels every hour, and, if required, adjust their intravenous insulin drip as needed. The treatment was heavily promoted starting in 2004 by the Surviving Sepsis Campaign and other medical groups, largely based on a single study in Belgium showing that critical-care patients often had high blood sugar that could lead to fatal complications.

High-dose hyperbaric oxygen therapy shows promise as a way to extend the window of opportunity to resuscitate a person whose heart has stopped during sudden cardiac arrest, a new study shows.

Researchers at the School of Medicine at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans report they used the technique to revive pigs up to 25 minutes after their hearts had stopped beating. In humans, if a patient's heart is not restarted through some means (CPR, medications or electric shock) within 16 minutes, 100 percent of patients die, according to American Heart Association statistics.

Chronic hepatitis B infects 400 million people worldwide, many of them children. Even with three effective vaccines available, hepatitis B remains a stubborn, unrelenting health problem, especially in Africa and other developing areas. The disease and its complications cause an estimated 1 million deaths globally each year.

In many poor countries, refrigerated conditions required for the current vaccines are costly and hard to come by. It's often difficult in the field to keep needles and syringes sterile. The need to have people return for the three shots currently required also limits success.

There's nothing like summer fun at camp when you're a child but a camp on Beaver Lake in White Haven, Pennsylvania is different.

The campers have asthma.

"We can't go to any other camp because we have asthma so they make it clean and nice here," Erin Maloney, a camper, said.

Camping in the woods is definitely tricky if you suffer from asthma, but camp AsthmaCadabra has dozens of volunteers, doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists who donate their time for four days, to give the children an outdoor adventure they'd never be able to enjoy because of their asthma, and the sneezing and wheezing.

Taking a breath of air can be as easy as drinking from a cup, but imagine if you were reduced to breathing through a straw. That constriction is a reality for a growing number of Americans with breathing problems, especially for Hispanics.

More than 10 percent of Floridians report having asthma, according to the Florida Health Department. For Puerto Ricans, the prevalence is greater.

"Puerto Ricans suffer from asthma at a much higher rate than any other ethnic group in the country," said Eric Gray of the American Lung Association's Central Florida chapter.

Burning incense may create a sweet scent, but regularly inhaling the smoke could put people at risk of cancers of the respiratory tract, researchers reported Monday.

In a study of more than 61,000 ethnic Chinese living in Singapore who were followed for up to 12 years, the investigators found a link between heavy incense use and various respiratory cancers.

The findings are published in the medical journal Cancer.

Ah the lazy, hazy days of summer in southern Illinois. It is a time marked by outdoor concerts, heading to the spillway and dehydration.

Dehydration? Yes, dehydration - a condition that affects approximately 75 percent of Americans. You have probably experienced symptoms of dehydration at some point in your life but may not have realized it.

Dehydration is a medical condition that occurs when the body does not receive adequate amounts of liquids, it loses too much fluid or both. We lose approximately 10 cups of water per day due to respiration, perspiration and eliminating wastes from the body. The body needs to replenish this lost fluid since it is responsible for keeping many systems running efficiently. Some of these systems include regulating temperature, lubricating the joints, flushing toxins out of the body and transporting energy to cells. Basically, every chemical reaction in the body occurs in a water medium.

Measles is caused by a virus and is spread through respiration, commonly through contacts with fluids from an infected person or through aerosol transmission. The virus is very contagious, almost 90%, and people with no immunity who share the same space with an infected person will catch the disease.

The period between the time when the virus gets into the body and the time when it erupts might be 4 to 12 days, during which there are no symptoms. The infected persons remain contagious from the first symptoms to 3 or 5 days after the rash appears.

From driving hybrid vehicles to planting trees, being "green" is a key interest for many Americans. Yet the air indoors, where Americans spend 90 percent of their time, can actually be up to 10 times more polluted than the air outdoors, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Contaminants such as pollen, mold spores, dirt, dust and other allergens can come from a variety of sources ranging from items as simple as household cleaning products to complex building materials and outdoor pollution. These allergens can have a major impact on health and wellness, including irritation of the eyes, nose and throat, headaches, dizziness and fatigue, as well as more serious problems like asthma. In fact, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America estimates that allergies affect as many as 57 million people in the U.S.

Nearly half of nonsmoking Americans are still breathing in cigarette fumes, but the percentage has declined dramatically since the early 1990s, according to a government study released Thursday.

A main reason for the decline in secondhand smoke is the growing number of laws and policies that ban smoking in workplaces, bars, restaurants and public places, said researchers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Another factor is the drop in the number of adult smokers: It has now inched below 20 percent, according to 2007 CDC data.

An infection that often goes undetected can block the lung's natural protective response against tobacco smoke, according to researchers at National Jewish Health. The findings, recently published online and scheduled to appear in the October issue of Infection and Immunity, suggest one mechanism that may cause smokers to develop chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

"Although smoking is the overwhelming cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), only 20 percent of smokers develop the disease," said Brian Day, senior author on the study and Professor of Medicine at National Jewish Health. "Our findings suggest that Mycoplasma pneumoniae (Mp) infection may be one of the co-factors that lead to COPD and other diseases among smokers."

Ever wondered why you feel breathless when you climb a set of stairs, do your exercise routine or perform your sports activities?

Breathlessness is a common symptom of lung and heart disease, but as we know, it is also part of normal exercise.

In its simplest terms, the feeling is a body's normal physiological response when a working muscle's demand for oxygen exceeds the respiratory system's ability to deliver enough oxygen to the muscle.

Diesel engines emit countless carbon nanoparticles into the air, slipping through government regulation and vehicle filters. A new University of Michigan simulation shows that these nanoparticles can get trapped in the lungs and inhibit the function of a fluid that facilitates breathing.

Lung surfactant is a fluid containing protein and lipid molecules. It reduces surface tension in the lungs, prevents them from collapsing and helps transport foreign particles that will ultimately be expelled from the lungs.

A new study shows a strong link between asthma and air pollution, with cities that are situated near the ports and the airport at highest risk for the respiratory condition.

Carson is the most impacted city, with 50 out of every 10,000 residents affected by the illness, according to a report by the California Air Resources Board recently presented at a state Senate hearing. Not far behind are the areas surrounding Los Angeles International Airport, Lennox and North Long Beach.

State Sen. Jenny Oropeza, D-Long Beach, who organized the hearing, said her office plans to release a more in-depth analysis about asthma in south Los Angeles County next month.

Breathing problems include pain, discomfort or any difficulty that interferes with the natural cycle of inhaling and exhaling air.

Breathing problems are common symptoms caused by many conditions, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), other lung diseases and heart disease. Most people who have breathing problems are aware of the condition, such as when children struggle to catch their breath during an asthma attack or ex-smokers find themselves easily winded due to emphysema.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is the most common lethal genetic disease in Caucasians, occurring in 1/2,500 births.12 In its most common form, CF manifests as progressive lung dysfunction, pancreatic insufficiency, and intestinal disease (see Figure 1). The gene which harbors mutations responsible for disease was identified in 1989, after which the protein it encodes was determined to function as a chioride channel that indirectly controls sodium transport. Since then, genetic testing has expanded our appreciation of the spectrum of disease that CF represents. Our continued desire to improve outcomes in the quality and quantity of life of CF patients has led to the recent implementation of newborn screening for CF in the United States. In this review, we will discuss exciting new developments in newborn screening for CF in the context of our current standards for diagnosis, therapy, and improved outcomes. The CFTR gene.

Babies born extremely prematurely may be left with lung abnormalities in adulthood, such as emphysema, Australian researchers have found. The study, funded by the Raine Foundation, followed up babies born up to four months premature in the 1980s and weighing as little as 635 g. All of the young adults taking part in the study had abnormal CT scans of their lungs. 84% had areas of emphysema and 75% had abnormal lung function tests, the researchers report in the upcoming issue of the European Respiratory Journal (ERJ).

Due to major improvements in neonatal care since the 1980s, an ever increasing number of babies are surviving extreme prematurity, and many have respiratory difficulties as infants. The first babies to benefit from this improved care are only now reaching adulthood. "This study reinforces the importance of stopping, or preferably never taking up, cigarette smoking, particularly if there is a history of preterm birth," Daniel Chambers of the Prince Charles Hospital and Andrew Wilson of the Princess Margaret and Royal Perth Hospitals in Australia said. "Overall, most of the subjects in this study had good, if not entirely normal, lung function despite having a very difficult time as babies."

COMPAMED, the international leading trade fair for the supplier market of medical manufacturing opens its doors simultaneously to MEDICA from November 19 to 21, 2008 again in Dusseldorf, Germany. In 2007, 460 exhibitors presented a wide range of high-tech solutions to about 13,000 expert visitors of COMPAMED. Solutions varied from advanced materials, parts and components, and services up to complex micro- and nanotechnology. This success shall be updated with the next COMPAMED. Especially the Product Market "High-tech for Medical Devices", initiated by IVAM Microtechnology Network, as well as the accompanying forum will attract many visitors again. The IVAM joint pavilion with a new exhibitor record of about 40 companies and institutes shows a lot of innovations.

Asthma-Free Naturally (Conari Press, September 2008) is a revolutionary book that teaches readers how to take control of their asthma safely and effectively without any side effects. The approach encompasses the Buteyko Breathing Method as well as guidance on diet, sleep, physical activity, and other lifestyle changes that can provide a natural alternative to asthma medications.

The author was a chronic asthmatic who applied the Buteyko Breathing Method to free himself from his asthma condition. In this book, he details the Buteyko Breathing Method , which is considered by many to be the single most effective self-help treatment for asthma and can be used by both adults and children.

Every year at an asthma camp in Santa Maria, elementary school-age children with asthma can learn about their disease, talk with others who understand their condition, and participate in hands-on adventures that most children don't get to experience.

Camp Wheez, which is free for all participants, was held Aug. 4 to 8 at Orcutt Presbyterian Church. It was founded more than three decades ago by Dr. Myron Liebhaber, a physician in Santa Barbara who specializes in childhood asthma. Children from first to sixth grade are eligible to attend.

From Monday through Thursday, campers rotate between a "lung class," a "lung lab" and crafts, and meet together at the end for recreation time.

Tuberculosis is one of the leading causes of death in people with HIV, resulting in an estimated13 percent of AIDS deaths worldwide. As Veronique LaCapra reports, doctors working with the World Health Organization stress the need to coordinate the response to these two catastrophic epidemics, and to integrate TB screening and treatment into HIV care.

More than 2 billion people - one third of the world's population - are infected with tuberculosis bacilli, the bacteria that cause TB. The disease disproportionately affects the world's poor: the vast majority of TB deaths are in developing countries.

In the first statewide study of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) in the United States, California officials have identified 18 cases of the dangerous and difficult-to-treat disease between 1993 and 2006, and 77 cases that were one step away from XDR TB.

California reports almost 3,000 cases of tuberculosis annually, the largest number of TB cases of any U.S. state. California has also led the nation since 2002 in the number of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) cases-those that are resistant to isoniazid and rifampin, the two antibiotics that form the backbone of TB treatment. XDR TB is resistant to even more classes of antibiotics, including fluoroquinolones and one of three injectable second-line drugs. The authors of the new study evaluated drug susceptibility data of MDR TB cases identified by the California TB Registry between 1993 and 2006, looking for cases that fit the XDR TB definition.

When anesthesiologist Dmitry Sedykh was called to treat an 8-month-old suffering from heart failure this May, he found no equipment to resuscitate the baby boy.

Sedykh, the only anesthesiologist in the village of Lesnoye in the Kirov region, was summoned to the children's ward of the local hospital to help little Alexei Artemikhin, who was in critical condition because of severe pneumonia.

The boy needed oxygen, but the hospital had no oxygen concentrator, a device used to provide oxygen therapy to patients. Like many small, rural hospitals, this one also lacked a centralized system in which oxygen is shipped through pipes. The hospital did have compressed oxygen in tanks, but because of the decrepit condition of the children's ward, fire inspectors had banned them from being used there.

Ah, that new car smell, that eau de car-logne; it does an ego good while it does a wallet bad. And now it turns out, it can do bad things to your health, too.

All these years, while we were being offered safety first, last and front, side and rear ways, hardly anyone in the vehicle industry had given much thought to what actually was in that perfume de profit, the new car smell that car buyers sought and bought.

As everyone knew, pollution related to vehicles originated from the exhaust pipe, not the shifter knob. It was spewed out the back of the rear, not the back of the rear view mirror. Well, what everyone thought they knew was wrong.

A recently discovered group of air pollutants could explain why non-smokers suffer similar health problems to smokers

Think smoking is bad for you? Try just breathing. Louisiana scientists have discovered a group of previously undetected air pollutants that when inhaled exposes the average person to 300 times more free radicals than that of one cigarette in a day.

Scientists have long suspected that free radicals from tobacco smoke can damage human cells and accelerate the progression of cancer or cardiovascular disease among other health-related problems. These free radicals, which are highly reactive compounds that form during the burning of fuels and photochemical processes, usually last for about a second and then disappear. However, the new class of pollutants is unlike atmospheric free radicals and can linger in the air for days or longer as well as travel far distances.

A chronic cough is defined as one that lasts for longer than one month in individuals who do not respond to first line treatment. It is an extremely common complaint in the general population.

Having a chronic cough can be embarrassing and frustrating. However, by understanding the underlying mechanisms that drive a chronic cough, 95% of patients can, with specific treatment, have the problem resolved.

Mechanisms of a chronic cough

The respiratory tract has rich innervations of sensory nerve endings, which are normally buried beneath the epithelium, the outer layer of the lining of the airways.

New research suggests that cadmium is one of the critical ingredients causing emphysema, and even low-level exposure attained through second-hand smoke and other means may also increase the chance of developing lung disease.

The University of Michigan study released on Wednesday suggests that higher cadmium levels in the body as much as double the risk of developing a pulmonary disease diagnosis such as emphysema or chronic bronchitis.

Though some studies have linked high levels of cadmium with decreased lung function in occupationally exposed workers, this study showed that subjects with even slightly increased levels of cadmium had decreased lung function.

For the first time, a drug therapy appears to reduce lung function loss in patients with moderate to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to the results of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in 42 countries.

The Toward a Revolution in COPD Health (TORCH) study investigated the effects of combined salmeterol, a B-agonist, and fluticasone propiniate, an inhaled cortical steroid, either alone or in combination, on mortality, exacerbations, health-related quality of life and rate of decline in lung function as measure by forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) in patients with COPD.

A weekly health column brought to you by Phoenixville Hospital.

Asthma affects nearly 20 million Americans, both young and old. In both pediatric and adult-onset cases, asthma symptoms can affect your quality of life or restrict your activity. However, with proper treatment, individuals with asthma can lead a healthy, normal life.

For both children and adults, asthma is characterized by a swelling of the airways leading to the lungs, which makes it difficult to breath. The airways may also create an excess of thick mucus clogging the airway passage or may become constricted because of contracting muscles. When those with asthma experience a major flare up that includes extreme difficulty breathing it is called an asthma attack. Asthma is often accompanied by wheezing and coughing, shortness of breath, tightness in the chest and difficulty sleeping.

From the UK - According to researchers from Newcastle University, a rheumatoid arthritis vaccine may soon be in development. Researchers will be testing the effectiveness of an experimental new vaccine that uses a patient's own blood cells to suppress the effects of rheumatoid arthritis. The vaccine could switch off unwanted immune responses without affecting the part of the immune system that guards against infection.

From Boston - According to research in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, boys are more likely than girls to grow out of childhood asthma. In a study of lung function in over 1,000 children, boys were more likely to wheeze but were also more likely to shed these symptoms when they became teenagers. This research suggests that sex hormones may play a role in asthma symptoms and severity.

As athletes from around the world compete in the Beijing Olympics, many are on alert for respiratory problems caused by air pollution. They should also be concerned about its toxic effects on the heart and cardiovascular system, mounting research shows.

According to an article published in the August 26, 2008, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), air pollution has both short- and long-term toxic effects that injure the heart and blood vessels, increase rates of hospitalization for cardiac illness, and can even cause death.

Draeger Medical, Inc. announced today that the Draeger Fabius MRI anesthesia machine has received FDA clearance. The newest member to the family of Draeger anesthesia machines is designed specifically to meet the requirements for the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) environment.

The Fabius MRI is designed for use with 1.5T and 3.0T MRI systems. An integrated Teslameter provides an acoustic alarm if the Fabius MRI is positioned within a field strength greater than 40mTesla (400 Gauss).

Endotracheal tubes coated with silver may cut down on ventilator-associated pneumonia in the intensive care unit, researchers here found.

Confirmed cases of ventilator-associated pneumonia were reduced by a relative 34.2% using tubes coated inside and out with silver ions embedded in a polymer -- occurring in 3.8% of patients versus 5.8% with uncoated tubes (P=0.04), reported Marin H. Kollef, M.D., of Washington University, and colleagues, in the Aug. 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In the randomized trial, the greatest benefit of the silver-coated tube appeared to come during the first 10 days of mechanical ventilation without extra work for clinicians.

Scientists have identified a new form of air pollutant which replicates the damage to humans caused by cigarette smoke.

Research presented at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society finds newly-detected 'persistent free radical' molecules explain why those who do not smoke often succumb to the same diseases as tobacco smokers.

Most of the free radical molecules exist only briefly before disappearing. Breathing in the exhaust from a passing car might result in their inhalation.

Smoking appears to be associated with an increased rate of hemorrhage (bleeding) in patients who undergo uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP, a surgical procedure used to remove excess tissue from the throat) with tonsillectomy (a surgical procedure in which the tonsils are removed), but not in those who undergo tonsillectomy alone, according to a report in the August issue of Archives of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Although indications for tonsillectomy have changed over the years, it remains a common surgical procedure with a substantial risk for complications, the greatest of which is post-operative hemorrhage, according to background information in the article.

Young women smokers are at a significant higher risk of having a stroke, a new study has found. Researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine suggest that women who smoke are twice as likely to have the risk of stroke compared to nonsmokers.

According to the study, published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, the young women's risk of stroke increases with each puff of cigarette they smoke.

To reach their findings, the researchers, led by Dr. John Cole of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, assessed stroke risk in 466 women who smoked cigarettes and had suffered a stroke between the ages of 15 and 49. They compared this group with a group of 604 women of similar age, race, and ethnicity who had not had a stroke.

Researchers have managed to discovery new air pollutants called free radicals, which have been linked to lung problems.

Researchers, led by H. Barry Dellinger from Louisiana State University, found that these free radicals could cause lung damage, and even lung cancer.

Free radicals have been known to exist in our atmosphere for some time now.

At a time in Toronto when many are worried about air quality, a new study out of the US reveals a new danger: persistent free radicals (PFRs).

The layer of haze that seems to hang over the city is made up of multiple chemicals but also tiny particles that are microscopic and can irritate your eyes, nose and throat. According to recent research, they may also lead to more serious health effects.

The author found that breathing in air pollution exposes the average person to 300 times more free radicals in a day than would come from smoking one cigarette.

Q: How should one deal with a bad breath? My father, who is 77 has a really bad case. I have asked him to see his doctor about it, but he stubbornly refuses. I do not remember that this was an issue when I was growing up, so I worry that he may be getting sick. How should I talk with my dad about this? - Sonia

A: This is a rather common, often embarrassing problem and by no means is it specific to the elderly. Anyone can get it.

Lets first talk about what can be causing the "bad breath," or as doctors prefer to call it halitosis. The list is long, but many of the problems can be treated or helped. The first and foremost is food. Certain products with volatile oils, like garlic and onion, after they are digested release oils into the blood stream, cause problems with breath for more than 72 hours. Certain spices and other vegetables can cause it as well.

What you need to know about OSHA's Respiratory Protection Standard

Just as I leaned in close to better hear my soft-spoken patient's answer to my question, he coughed, forcefully. A mist of sputum launched from his mouth and coated the side of my face and neck. His complaint was sudden onset of fever, weakness, chills, congestion and productive cough. Whatever he had, I could now feel it, smell it or taste it.

Personal safety is always the EMS provider's first priority. This article reviews the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standard for respiratory protection. It also explores occupational exposure to tuberculosis.