Since the inflammatory response can be reduced pharmacologically in CF patients without allowing infection to increase and with benefit to the patient [1], and since infants and young children with CF have interleukin-8 (IL-8) and neutrophil count in BAL fluid significantly in excess of that observed for non-CF children with comparable bacterial burden [2,3], many investigators have concluded that the inflammatory response is excessive and deleterious in the CF lung [reviewed in [4]]. This evidence concerns the gene CXCL8 and cystic fibrosis.