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Nope, not just you! Allergy season(s) are actually getting worse - and longer. In part, it’s due to climate change. Warmer temperatures mean that plants are blooming sooner, so pollen season is longer overall. There are also higher pollen counts than in the past. For much of the country, winter is now the only season without major allergens like pollen or ragweed in the air. Warmer states, like Florida, have very little respite. As the seasons get longer and more intense, more adults are developing new allergies, too. What might not have bothered them before is now strong enough to cause an allergic reaction. Not the news we wanted to hear, but it may be time to break out those allergy medications for the long haul.
Source: The Atlantic
It's a little confusing that we still call this the bird flu or avian flu, because the major news stories about it tend to be when it spreads to mammals. Ultimately, this disease still spreads much more easily, and the illness it causes is more severe in birds than in mammals, including humans. But it has been spreading for the past two years to wild mammals, and most recently it spread to dairy cows in five US states. Of particular concern is that there’s strong evidence that it’s now spreading from cow to cow, not just directly from birds. And just this week, we received confirmation that a human got sick after contact with a cow. Before we panic, there’s a lot of good news here. First, the person’s symptoms were very mild, more like an eye infection than the flu. Second, scientists have been studying avian influenza for a very long time and have a good sense of what types of mutations need to happen to make it dangerous for humans, and those haven’t happened yet. But any time a highly contagious pathogen is jumping between birds and mammals and humans, there’s a risk for new mutations to develop, and that’s what we’re keeping a very close eye on.
Right now, dairy supply isn’t being impacted by the recent discovery that the highly pathogenic avian flu has spread to dairy cows in at least five states. That’s because only the milk of individual sick cows is affected and discarded, and on top of that, commercial milk is pasteurized which kills flu virus along with other dangerous pathogens. That said, there is new evidence that cows are likely spreading the flu to each other, not just getting it directly from contact with sick birds. If this started to spread faster among dairy cows, and enough cows got sick, the milk supply might ultimately be affected. We’re still a ways out from that, as it’s only affecting a few farms right now, and not every cow is infected as far as we know. Epidemiologists, farmers, and economists will all certainly be keeping a close eye on this in the coming months, but for now, the milk you buy from wholesalers or at your local grocery store is safe and the risk to individual milk lovers is low.
Source: YLE
A new RSV vaccine and monoclonal antibodies are huge breakthroughs for saving the lives of babies. Despite vaccine hesitancy growing nationwide, parents are eager to protect their babies from RSV, and some say the CDC is limiting access too much.