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That is little comfort, however, in this excruciating season of sniffles, which will not fade until ragweed -- the antagonist that may claim more victims than any other plant -- stops flowering in the fall. There is no precise way to measure how bad an allergy season is, since pollen counts are notoriously unreliable and as variable as local weather. But in the East, where spring was unusually concentrated this year, some readings have gone off the charts. At this time in 1991, Robert Hamilton, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, generally measured 1,000 to 2,000 pollen grains per cu m of air. This year there have been several days when the reading topped 8,000.
Personal anecdotal testimony is more emphatic. "This year has been the worst," pronounces Marina Gomes, 36, of Monroe, N.Y. Her head is constantly stuffed, her eyes water and itch, and she can't sleep. "It's horrible," she says. Dr. William Davis, director for pediatric allergies at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City, calls 1992 the worst year in a decade. He says he is seeing patients who have not suffered such nasty symptoms for years, and his first-time visits are up 20%.
Those allergic to pollen are only the most numerous group in a much broader class of people who react badly to invisible tormentors usually in the air. In a sense, hay fever sufferers are among the lucky ones, since they have at least some idea of what is bothering them, how to minimize the problem and when it will stop. Millions of others are vulnerable all year round and unexpectedly come down with a dismaying variety of symptoms. They swell up, - break out in hives and blisters, develop eczema or upset stomachs, and have breathing difficulties. After the initial reaction comes the frustrating detective work to find the culprit among such widely disparate menaces as dust, cat dander, mold spores, foods, medications and insect bites.
At their worst, these allergens produce sudden death -- a result of what is called anaphylactic shock -- in 2,000 Americans a year. Another occasionally deadly complication is asthma, a chronic breathing disorder that kills 4,000 Americans a year (see following story). Altogether, allergies and asthma affect as many as 50 million people in the U.S., costing them up to $5 billion annually and accounting for 1 of every 9 visits to the doctor, including 1 of every 5 trips to a pediatrician. Despite the mass discomfort, the allergy branch of the National Institutes of Health spent only $29 million on studies of allergic disease in fiscal 1991 and another $15 million on asthma-related research.
Yet scientists report that they are making progress. In both academic and private labs, molecular biologists are unraveling the complex process that produces allergies, and geneticists are homing in on the genes that direct it. "What has changed dramatically over the past decade is an appreciation of how the inflammatory response is orchestrated," says Dr. Stephen Wasserman, chairman of the medicine department at the University of California, San Diego. "We are beginning to understand the fundamental regulators of the entire process."