‘Smust’ Puts Pressure on a Unique Gene Pool

It began with tuberculosis outbreaks decades ago, doctors here say, as patients flocked to Arizona clinics seeking relief, or a miracle cure.

Allergy and asthma sufferers later joined the move to the dry desert around Phoenix.

But those days of environmental cures are gone, the doctors say. Cars and construction have produced carbon monoxide and dust, a combination some call “smust.”

Sun Belt transplants and retirees have brought plants and trees and grasses with them, raising the pollen level and heightening the exposure for allergy patients.

Now, street-corner allergy and respiratory clinics cater to the pulmonary pilgrims and their offspring, who may be even worse off.

“We really have a genetic pool of bad genes here,” said Dr. William Morgan of Glendale, a Phoenix suburb. “All these allergic people have moved out here, have married other allergic people and have inbred.”

The belief that Phoenix was a clean haven for respiratory and allergy patients has spawned a health care industry of its own--an industry growing as fast as any these days, according to the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce.

“Arizona has a high number of respiratory disease patients. This is not the place for them,” said Jay Schied of the Arizona Lung Assn. “We take a stance of discouraging those people (from coming). We have high levels of pollution, lots of dust, severe heat and low humidity. They can all cause problems for respiratory patients.”

Weather, like automobiles, plays a part in the Southwest’s pollution problems.

The attractive weather patterns--lack of wind, lack of rain and winter high-pressure inversions--also allow pollutants such as carbon monoxide and dust to build up, said Arizona State University climatologist Tony Brazel.

Retired postmaster Robert Schwartz came to the Phoenix area in 1939 at age 10, suffering from acute asthma. His parents had been told he’d be dead in six months if they didn’t move out of New York City.

His asthma disappeared, only to return in the last 10 years. Some days, when he wakes and struggles to breathe, he knows he’ll see the smog outside his window.

“My lungs are like a pollution meter,” said Schwartz, now 56.

Sheila Morgan moved to Arizona from suburban Chicago in 1972 thinking it “was the Nirvana everyone was looking for.”

She improved for a while, but then gradually developed allergies to pollens common to the Southwest--and different from those in Chicago.

“I had an ‘allergic honeymoon,’ then it all got worse again,” she said.

That type of experience is common, according to Dr. Edward Chu of the Allergy Asthma Clinic.

“I see a lot of people come out and they’re good for a year or two or even five, and then they get their allergies all over again,” he said.