A Study of Inhalation of 20,000 EU CCRE in Normal Volunteers Compared to Allergic Asthmatic Individuals

This will be a single center, open label study comparing baseline characteristics of recovered sputum cells (collected on screening day) to those of cells recovered 6 hours after inhalational challenge with 20,000 EU Clinical Center Reference Endotoxin (CCRE, a component of air pollution)) within each group as well as cross group comparisons between individuals with allergic asthma (AA's)and normal volunteers (NV's). The primary objective of this study is to test the hypothesis that persons with allergic asthma will have an increased neutrophil response to challenge with 20,000 EU CCRE compared to normal volunteers. Secondary objectives include post CCRE comparison between AA's and NV's with regard to changes in airway cells and blood as well as changes in mucociliary clearance (MCC) in response to inhalation of 20,000 EU CCRE.