Those who want to prove the Walla Walla Big Bang?

Yes but neither the persistent posting the reports on the latest asthma
research here nor the reports themselves is science either.  It is
surely a symptom of asthma for the victim to look for some organic
cause and not just something to do with lifestyle.  An enterprising
asthma doc or a drug manufacturer knowing his stuff will simply have to
mastermind the obliging patients, like appealing  to the patient's
sense of invincibility with phrases like "asthma action plans".

See the somewhat similar situation with fibromyalgia (Fibromyalgia,
could it me on your mind?)
http://www.rheuma21st.com/archives/cutting_edge_fibromyalgia.html

"When coping is exhausted by persistent pain, fatigue, sadness and
attendant challenges to one's sense of invincibility, medical care is
the ready recourse. Once such individuals choose to seek care, they are
likely to do so repeatedly and for varying musculoskeletal complaints.
And if they finally arrive at the office of the "expert" to abandon all
diagnostic uncertainty, their prognosis for joie de vivre is dismal.
There is a great human tragedy in all this. And the tragedy is all the
more horrific for those who suffer to the extent that their ability to
maintain gainful activity is compromised. This is more and more the
case and challenges the entire western paradigm for disability
determination.

It may not be possible to extricate these sufferers from this vortex.
They and all who care for and about them are predisposed to continue
doing what they've been doing, only hoping to do it better. Afterall,
the "fibromyalgia" construct is crafted to be consonant with our
concept of disease and is nurtured by the rules of the
physician-patient contract. We in modern medicine are imbued with a
belief in the power of the biomedical model. And we who choose to be
patients are wont to endow our treating physician with authority. For
"fibromyalgia", it is the patient's burden to persevere, somehow,
perhaps with palliative measures, because someday the "cause" will be
defined and the physician will apply the "cure" that surely will be
forthcoming."

To keep on sticking to the biomedical model with asthma is illogical.

The linked picture of Mr./Herr Pilates with his abdominal muscles for
his "guts" at age 57 looking like a Mr. World must surely make some
people think twice about the "asthma science" doled out to us here.
Aren't there still plenty of nutty professors around? Jerry Lewis
was with Larry King on CNN two days ago.

An approach to asthma could well be:

1)    What is the asthmatic trying to do while frantically breathing in an
attack, trying to kill himself or just looking for secondary gain?
2)    It might well be that he is trying to take a deep breath but somehow
isn't managing the correct technique. His inhales are too snatchy to
get the lungs inflated.  See
http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~s3e0101/webserver/webdata/Hofbauer.doc for
a picture of taking a deep breath.  The upper abdomen is drawn in, the
rib cage is expanded and inhalation is through the nose (or between the
lips) like for using a try your strength machine at a fairground.
3)    Recent research (Dr. Gwen Skloot) has investigated a provocation
test as an asthma diagnosis using a substance which makes the air
passages contract. The characteristic difference is that a
non-asthmatic successfully takes a deep breath and so prevents asthma
symptoms.
4)    It is therefore logical and a human, but not necessarily medical,
duty to teach the asthmatic how to do his deep breaths effectively.
5)    This is the gist of part of Mr. Pilates' protocol.  He tightens
the upper abdominal muscles and expands the rib cage correctly. It is
an inverse, reverse or Taoist breath. Sort of sursum corda. I suppose
it takes some to learn this. Practice makes perfect.
Regards, Richard Friedel.