Is this the blue inhaler's last gasp?

Is there any medication better known among the public than salbutamol?

They probably won’t recognise the name, but they would know the blue inhaler.

It’s next to the Band-Aid packet and antiseptic creams in the medicine cabinet.

And it lurks in our childhood memories too, the cross-country run and the breathless and desperate kids, walking at the back, inhalers in hand.

But there is a clinical debate running about whether the inhaler used for daily emergency relief should now be considered a killer.

This, at least, is the vivid description given by UK respiratory specialist Professor Andrew Bush.

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