
In the classifications of causes of death shown in the chart above, CLRD (the red line) is "Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease", which is a combination of bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma. CLRD is currently the third leading cause of death in the US, moving from 4th to 3rd in 2008.
However the actual rate of CLRD is largely unchanged from 1999, actualy moving down slightly from 44 deaths/100,000 in 1999-2001 to 42 in 2011-2013. So there is no rise in respiratory mortality. The reason CLRD "overtook" stroke in 2008 was because the rate of deaths from stroke is decreasing faster than deaths from CLRD. Let's compare just stroke and CLRD:

Notice the trend line for CLRD, the average rate is trending down - on average fewer people are dying of respiratory disease.
The data set here comes from the CDC, specifically the NCHS data visualization: Top 10 Leading Causes of Death: United States, 1999–2013

The interactive tool there is useful, but does not let you compare the different causes against each other, so I created the above graphs from the linked data spreadsheet. You can verify this yourself, or simply compare the individual graphs there with the ones I posted above.
So given the lack of changes in this number, why are some people (specifically chemtrail theorists) claiming it as evidence of some secret program of spraying that's affecting everyone's respiratory health?
This origin of this claim initially seems to date back to 2011, when the stroke rate falling below the CLRD rate was reported, first by the CDCC:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db64.pdf
http://www.lung.org/associations/states/wisconsin/news/chronic-lower-respiratory.html
This slight misrepresentation by the American Lung Association was then pounced on by the "chemtrail" theorist, for example Patrick Roddie, who used it in a statement he read at an EPA hearing, linking to the lung.org paper in a transcript he posted later
http://stopsprayingus-sf.com/epa/
While Roddie's claim can be dated back to 2011, it seems to have been conflated with earlier claims by chemtrail theorists who originally claimed that the rise was from eighth to third. Many of these claims are still published as fact, with varying dates, for example in 2015:
http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/...te-engineering-dangers-at-community-workshop/
http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/chemtrails-when-you-read-this-you-will-become-a-believer-too/
The linked video is an interview with Naturopath Gwen Scott, who says:
http://www.bariumblues.com/reason_for_chemtrails.htm
The mistake propagated, with version of it finding its way onto many web pages, speeches and documentaries. Such as this statement by Dane Wigington in 2012:

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