Hello and welcome to a special episode of Spectator Radio. I'm Kate Andrews, the Spectator's

Economics Editor, and your host for the next half hour. Everybody knows somebody who has asthma.

You yourself might even have it. 5.4 million people in the UK are currently receiving treatment,

and 200,000 have severe asthma,

a form of the condition that doesn't typically respond well to medication. For many, asthma is a

severe and debilitating condition, but there exists a real disconnect between its severity and the

organization of resources to treat it. When it comes to treating illness, remission is

rarely black and white, but for asthma, it's commonly steroids. 130,000 people are currently

reliant on steroids to manage their asthma, but is it ethical to use them in the treatment of

asthma? What, if anything, is the alternative? Steroids have become the frenemy of both patients

and the health care system. On the one hand, they're cheap to administer and largely effective,

but on the other, the side effects they produce can be very difficult for patients, and costly too.

Joining me to discuss all of this is David Price, Professor of Primary Respiratory Medicine at the

University of

Aberdeen, and he's currently leading the first international severe asthma registry.

I'm also joined by Astroseneca, Saeed Ali, and this podcast is kindly sponsored by AstraZeneca.

And please note, the patient's individual experience of severe asthma and discussion in this

podcast are not medical

advice. If you have questions about your own health, please discuss with your healthcare professional.

David, I'll start with you. Could you give us a little background on what asthma is?

I mean, asthma is not one disease as such. It is actually a whole combination of different

types of asthma as we might now regard it.

...