• Allergic alveolitis
• asbestos induced lung disease
• cough/mechanisms/pharmacology
• occupational lung disease
• allergic lung disease
• asbestos induced lung disease
• asthma, asthma epidemiology
• asthma guidelines
• clinical epidemiology
• COPD epidemiology
• occupational lung disease

We read with interest the recent article by Navaratnam et al highlighting the unexplained rising incidence of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in the UK.1 While we agree that this area is of great clinical interest, we feel that the rapidly rising incidence, linked with the gender, age, geographical and socioeconomic risk factors for this disease, is strongly suggestive that the cause is not wholly idiopathic. Previous work by the same group found that 20% of IPF could be explained epidemiologically by occupational exposures to metals or wood dust,2 yet there is no discussion relating to …