Galveston County Daily News, April 7, 2007 GALVESTON - Everyone already knows what causes asthma attacks: It's an allergic reaction to things like cigarette smoke, house dust, cat hair, horse hair, cockroach feces and other environmental substances, right? Maybe not.The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, which the National Institutes of Health recently designated as part of its Asthma Clinical Research Network, has joined seven other premier respiratory centers nationwide in a federally funded study of whether the conventional medical wisdom is wrong, in whole or in part.