Isoproterenol and Sudden Death of Asthmatic Patients in Ventricular Fibrillation

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Abstract
To the Editor: In a recent retrospective study, Stolley1 presents evidence that a pressurized aerosol nebulizer containing highly concentrated isoproterenol may have contributed to an "epidemic of deaths" from asthma in Great Britain, several additional European countries, and some areas of the British Commonwealth. Stolley's view was the subject of a feature article in the New York Sunday Times,2 which quotes his statement that the "asthma death epidemic" that peaked in 1966 was the worst therapeutic drug disaster on record, accounting for at least 3600 fatalities in England alone in a six-year span and thus outranking even the thalidomide tragedy. . . .