asthma

The Salton Sea, the largest lake in California, is drying up, revealing a bed packed with toxic chemicals, the residue of a century of runoff from Imperial Valley farms. Public-health experts worry that those chemicals pose a grave risk to the health of people who live nearby, mostly farmworkers, the elderly and families too poor to relocate, as Lindsay Fendt reports in FERN's latest story, published with The Weather Channel. (No paywall)

Amish children owe their extremely low rate of asthma to living and playing around barnyard animals, says a study out by the New England Journal of Medicine. According to the New York Times, researchers were so impressed with their findings that they suggested formulating a spray for children who don’t have livestock at home.