Certain treatment regimens may prove effective, or it may be more worthwhile to improve indoor air quality by improving insulation and ventilation, depending on an individual's circumstances.

As the sound of sneezing grows louder, the health care system will likely become more streamlined and efficient to deal with more patients. However, Lyons expects that the rate of new allergy sufferers seeking help will likely outpace any improvements from scaling up treatments.

Lyons said he now wants to calculate the precise dollar costs of allergies and said his preliminary estimates show they may rise by 30 percent as the climate warms. In addition, he wants to extend this type of analysis to other products and supply chains to help manufacturers and consumers understand how products people buy affect their health and the environment.

Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500

4 Comments

1. 1. vapur 12:23 PM 11/29/12

   Wait a minute, if climate change is going to cause an increase in deserts, that would mean there would be less plant life to produce pollen. In those instances, people will move toward areas that still have plant life left; therefore, they are the cause of their own misery. Individual and societal evolution in action! People are choosing to be exposed to allergies by their choices in living location, and while AGW isn't helping, it certainly isn't the whole problem.

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2. 2. vapur 12:29 PM 11/29/12

   Hypochondria will increase the pace of purchase for pharmaceuticals not needed for something rarely fatal, using lost productivity as the cause célèbre. This is just a convenient excuse to raise prices.

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3. 3. Scienceproofreader 02:06 PM 11/29/12

   Increase? How can that be when according to the global warming groupies we're all goint to be dead from malaria, floods, drought, ,forest fires, locust plagues, starvation and a hundred other inevitable horrors?
   
   Drink the purple Kool-ade or perish!

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4. 4. outsidethebox 05:36 PM 11/29/12

   Was this article originally published in The Onion?

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