They Deserved More Time: Honoring Those We Have Lost to Asthma and Anaphylaxis

In memory of every person whose life was cut short by a disease the world still does not take seriously enough.

On May 24th, Asthma and Anaphylaxis Remembrance Day takes place around the world. It is an observance that most people have never heard of—and one that deserves to be far better known.

It is not a day that trends on social media. There are no parades. No national moment of silence. But for the families who have lost someone to an asthma attack or anaphylaxis—a parent, a child, a sibling, a friend—May 24th is a day that arrives every year carrying the full weight of what was lost. A voice. A laugh. A future that was supposed to happen.

We want to pause here, before we say anything else, and acknowledge those families directly.

We see you. We are sorry. And we believe that the best way to honor who you lost is to make sure the world understands that this did not have to happen—and that for the people still living with asthma and anaphylaxis today, it does not have to keep happening at this rate.

Famous People Who Died From Asthma—And Why Their Stories Matter

Some of the people we have lost to asthma were known to the world. Their absence left a visible mark—on stages, on screens, in the cultural memory of millions of people who never met them but felt the loss anyway. Their stories are a reminder that asthma does not discriminate. It takes the celebrated and the unknown, the young and the old, the powerful and the vulnerable.

Asthma is fatal far more often than most people realize. And the stories below are not anomalies. They are faces on a number that is almost too large to hold.

Charlotte Coleman was 33 years old when she died. British audiences knew her as the warm, chaotic, red-haired Scarlett in Four Weddings and a Funeral—the best friend, the one who made you laugh. She died on November 14, 2001, from a severe asthma attack. She had a career ahead of her, relationships, decades of work she would never make. The people who loved her had no warning. One attack. And she was gone.

Laurel Griggs was 13 years old.

Let that sit for a moment.

Thirteen years old, with a Broadway career already behind her—she had performed in Once and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and been celebrated as one of the most gifted young performers of her generation. On November 4, 2019, she suffered what her family described as a massive asthma attack. She did not survive it. The theater community was devastated. Her parents were devastated. A child with her entire life ahead of her—her voice, her talent, her future—was gone in a single night.

These are two names. Two stories. Two faces we can put to a disease that the world has a troubling tendency to minimize.

But they are not alone. Not even close.

How Many People Die From Asthma Each Year? The Asthma Death Rate Is Higher Than Most People Know.

Is asthma fatal? The answer, for nearly half a million people every year, is yes.

Asthma causes approximately 455,000 to 461,000 deaths worldwide every single year. In the United States alone, the asthma death rate claims thousands of lives annually—the majority of which are considered preventable with proper management, environmental intervention, and access to care.

Every year.

That means that since Laurel Griggs was born in 2006, the world has lost more than six million people to this disease. Six million people who woke up one morning with a chronic illness that is—in the majority of cases—manageable. Treatable. In many cases, preventable. And did not survive it.

Can asthma be fatal in adults? Absolutely—and adult-onset asthma, which is increasing in prevalence, tends to be more severe and harder to control than childhood asthma. The risk of a fatal asthma attack does not diminish with age. In many cases, it grows.

Behind every one of those deaths is a family. Parents who will never stop replaying the last day. Children who grew up without a mother or a father. Spouses who sleep alone. Friends who still reach for their phone to text someone who is no longer there.

This is not a statistic. It is six million individual human losses, multiplied by every person who loved them.

And here is what makes this grief particularly heavy: we know more than we have ever known about what causes asthma, what triggers it, what worsens it, and what can be done to prevent it. We have the knowledge. The question is whether we, as a society, are taking it seriously enough.

What We Know About Asthma Prevention—And What We Owe It to Them to Act On

All month long—for Asthma Awareness Month 2025—we have been publishing the research. Not to be alarmist. Not to sell fear. But because education is the only path to prevention, and prevention is the only way to honor the people we have lost.

In our May 1st blog on asthma risk factors, we laid out the full landscape of this disease: the 28.2 million Americans currently living with asthma, the $82 billion annual economic burden, the 1.4 million emergency department visits every year. We wrote about the prenatal risk factors—maternal and paternal smoking, air pollution exposure during pregnancy, vitamin D deficiency—that begin shaping a child's respiratory future before they take their first breath. We wrote about mold in homes and schools, pesticide exposure, early-life viral infections, the disruption of the gut microbiome by antibiotic overuse. We wrote about the racial disparities that mean some communities carry a burden of asthma morbidity and mortality that others do not.

We wrote about all of it because the research is clear: asthma is not simply something that happens to people. It develops. It is shaped by the environment. It is influenced by the air inside the homes and schools and workplaces where we spend our lives. And while no one can eliminate every risk factor, many of the most significant ones are modifiable.

That is not a small thing.

A child who grows up in a home with persistent mold, whose parents smoke, who lives near agricultural pesticide application, who attends a school with aging HVAC systems and moisture-damaged walls—that child's asthma risk is not fixed. It is the sum of exposures that can, in many cases, be reduced.

A family that understands indoor air quality and asthma, that addresses mold promptly, that switches to fragrance-free cleaning products, that runs a medical-grade air purifier in their child's bedroom—that family is not guaranteed to prevent asthma. But they are meaningfully changing the equation.

This is what we owe to the people we have lost. Not grief alone. Action. Education carried forward into behavior change.

What Asthma and Anaphylaxis Remembrance Day Really Means

Asthma and Anaphylaxis Remembrance Day is not a day for statistics. It is a day for names. For faces. For the specific, irreplaceable people who are no longer here.

But remembrance without resolve is just sorrow. And the people we have lost deserve more than sorrow. They deserve to be the reason things change.

Laurel Griggs was 13 years old. She should be 19 today, auditioning for college theater programs or taking her first steps onto a professional stage as a young adult. The fact that she is not here is not something we can undo. But the fact that children are still dying from asthma attacks—children with the same disease, living in the same kinds of homes, breathing the same kinds of air—is something we can work on.

Charlotte Coleman should be 56. She should have a body of work spanning three decades. She should have had the chance to grow into the actress her early career promised she would become. We cannot give her that. But we can take seriously the disease that took her.

In the past 12 months, there have been 455,000 others we cannot name here. But they were someone's everything. And they deserve the same resolve.

To the Families of Those Lost to Asthma and Anaphylaxis

If you are reading this and you have lost someone to asthma or anaphylaxis—a child, a parent, a partner, a friend—we want you to know that this day is real. Your loss is real. The gap they left is real. And the work of people like you, who have turned grief into advocacy, who have shared your stories, who have pushed for better research and better standards and better awareness—that work is changing things.

The mothers we wrote about earlier this month—Marilee Nelson, Lindsay Reeves, Jackie Talarico—turned their pain into action. Dr. Sheila Kilbane turned her frustration with a broken system into a different way of practicing medicine. Jackie Talarico turned a stack of NDAs and a housing contractor's indifference into federal legislation. None of them asked for the circumstances that brought them to this work. But they showed up anyway.

That is what remembrance looks like when it refuses to stay still.

How to Honor Asthma and Anaphylaxis Remembrance Day: Practical Ways to Make a Difference

If this day means something to you—if a name comes to mind when you read it—here is how to honor them. Some of these steps take five minutes. Some are life-changing. All of them matter.

Learn about asthma causes, triggers, and prevention. Understanding what causes asthma to develop—and how to prevent asthma attacks—is the foundation of everything else. Read. Research. Ask better questions at your next doctor's appointment. And share what you learn with the people around you who need it most.

Act on your indoor air quality. The bedroom is where you spend eight or more hours a night—and the air in that room matters more than most families realize. Mold spores, dust mite debris, pet dander, and VOCs from cleaning products and synthetic fragrances are all documented asthma triggers in the home. Start where you sleep: the Austin Air Bedroom Machine was designed specifically for that environment. It is not a luxury. It is one of the most practical, evidence-backed steps a family can take to reduce asthma triggers and lower the risk of a serious asthma attack.

But the bedroom is only where you start. Asthma triggers don't stay in one room—and neither should your protection. For families who want clean air in every room where they live, cook, work, and breathe, our Whole Home Bundle extends the same medical-grade filtration throughout the entire home. Because the air your family breathes in the kitchen, the living room, and the hallway matters too. Every room. Every breath. That is the standard this disease demands.

Share this with someone who needs it. Do you know a family struggling to manage asthma symptoms? A pregnant mother who doesn't yet know that indoor air quality is one of the most significant and modifiable risk factors for childhood asthma? Send them this blog. Send them our May 1st article on asthma risk factors. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is put the right information in front of the right person at the right moment.

Advocate for change. Support organizations working on asthma equity, mold standards in housing, air quality regulation, and environmental health research. Sign the petitions. Share the legislation. Use your voice.

Talk about it. The single most powerful thing that changes a public health crisis is when it stops being whispered about and starts being spoken plainly. Asthma kills nearly half a million people a year. The asthma death rate in the United States claims thousands of preventable lives annually. That number should be known. It should be said out loud. It should make people uncomfortable enough to do something about it.

Join Us: The Austin Air Community Is Working to Change This

At Austin Air, we have always believed that clean air is not a luxury. It is a foundation. And we believe that no company—no matter how good its products are—can solve a public health crisis alone. That is why, beyond building the most clinically validated air purifiers on the market, we are actively building a community of people who are committed to making clean indoor air accessible, understood, and prioritized in homes and communities across the country.

If that mission resonates with you, there is a place for you in it.

Are you a clinician, functional medicine practitioner, pediatrician, environmental health professional, or building biology inspector? Our Austin Air dealer network exists for professionals like you—people who are already in the room with families navigating asthma, mold illness, chemical sensitivities, and chronic inflammatory conditions. Becoming an Austin Air dealer means having access to the most rigorously studied air filtration products available, at pricing that allows you to integrate them into your practice and recommendations with confidence. The families you serve deserve tools that have been through seven independent clinical trials and come out the other side with positive results. We'd be honored to work alongside you.

Are you a person of influence—a content creator, community leader, wellness advocate, or someone with a large and trusted network? Our affiliate program is built for people who believe in what they share. If you have an audience that trusts your voice and you believe in the importance of clean indoor air for health, we want to partner with you. You don't need a medical degree to make a difference in this space. You need a platform and the conviction to use it.

Are you someone who simply cares? Then share this. Share our May 1st blog on asthma risk factors with a parent who has an asthmatic child. Share our Mother's Day blog with a mother who has been dismissed. Share this remembrance piece with someone who has lost someone. The reach of good information, placed in the right hands at the right moment, is immeasurable.

To learn more about becoming an Austin Air dealer or affiliate, download our dealer kit or contact us about the affiliate program. We are building something bigger than a product line. We are building a movement toward cleaner air, healthier homes, and fewer preventable losses.

Because 455,000 deaths a year is not a number we are willing to accept as inevitable.

A Final Word: Remembrance Is Not Enough Without Action

On May 24th, we remember.

We remember the voice silenced too soon. The child who never got to grow up. The parent who never came home from the hospital. The person whose inhaler was not enough.

We remember them not with resignation but with resolve—because the research exists, the tools exist, and the knowledge exists to make asthma less deadly than it has been. The only thing that has ever been missing is the collective will to treat it with the seriousness it deserves.

On Asthma and Anaphylaxis Remembrance Day, take a moment. Light a candle. Make a change in your home. Share an article. Join a network. Become a dealer. Become an affiliate. Do something—however small or however large—that moves the needle from awareness toward action.

They deserved more time. The people still living with this disease deserve a better future.

Let's give it to them.

If you'd like to read more please check out the blogs here.

Why Are So Many People Developing Asthma

When Mother's Instinct Outsmarts Modern Medicine

REFERENCES

Global Asthma Network. (2022). Asthma deaths. The Global Asthma Report 2022. https://globalasthmareport.org/burden/deaths.php (globalasthmanetwork.org)