Renegade, it's difficult to correlate the rising prevalence of asthma in the US with rising pollution because air pollution has in fact been
decreasing for some 30-odd years:
http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/highlights.html
While its pathophysiology is extremely complicated, at least part of the increase in asthma may, surprisingly, be due to
improved hygiene:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis