Reader: "Nearly 870,000 people in Michigan have asthma -- about 9 percent of the state's population. That's a 15 percent increase from the late 1980s, according to 2003 figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the latest data available. Michigan ranks fourth in the nation in the prevalence of asthma. Nearly half the cases are in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Livingston counties: about 290,000 adults and 100,000 children"