How climate change is making our allergies worse

Allergic respiratory pathologies, such as seasonal rhinitis and asthma, have almost doubled in twenty years in industrialized countries. From April to May, the birch pollen season is in full swing. Watery eyes, itchy throat, runny nose: so many immune reactions that doctors call "allergic rhinitis." According to the National Agency for Food Safety, Environment and Health at Work ( ANSES ), almost every third adult in France suffers from a pollen allergy. More than in the past? Already in 2008, an epidemiological study confirmed that the number of pollen rhinitis in France had tripled in twenty-five years. A few years later, ANSES wrote in a 2014 report that "the prevalence of allergic respiratory pathologies such as seasonal rhinitis and asthma has practically doubled in the last twenty years in industrialized countries" . (Raphaëlle Aubert, more at lemonde.fr)