An estimated 17 million-20 million people in the United States suffer from asthma, and cases of it have been increasing since the early 1980s, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Every day, in this country, 30,000 people suffer an asthma attack, and 14 people die from the disease.
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/03.16/01-asthma.html