SPECIAL | You're not crazy. Allergy season really is getting worse
The Excerpt
USA TODAY
4.4 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 10 April 2025
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
It’s allergy season and that means sneezing, coughing and itchy eyes for many. If you’ve wondered if your allergies are getting worse, you’re not alone. New research shows that pollen season is getting longer and more intense. But why? Lew Ziska, associate professor at Columbia University and a co-author of a new study on pollen, joins The Excerpt to share the science behind an intensifying allergy season.
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| 0:00.0 | The work we've done at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has really changed how cancer is treated. |
| 0:06.7 | Dr. Gordon Freeman's discovery of the PDL-1 pathway has revolutionized immunotherapy. |
| 0:12.1 | Dr. Stephen Hody's work has taken this knowledge further by attacking metastatic melanoma and kidney cancer through more than one pathway. |
| 0:19.5 | Dana-Farber has been steadily discovering for 75 years. |
| 0:23.4 | Go to Danafarber.org slash stories and see how what we do here changes lives everywhere. |
| 0:34.2 | Hello and welcome to the excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. |
| 0:36.9 | Today is Thursday, March 10th, 2025, and this is a special episode of the excerpt. |
| 0:47.7 | Spring is here, and that means that we're sneezing, itchy eyes and noses, and congestion that define allergy season. If you're one of those who suffer from seasonal allergies, you might have noticed that it seems to be getting worse with each year. Even if you didn't suffer regularly from pollen allergies in the past, you might have noticed that you are now. Turns out pollen allergens are getting worse. The question is, why? To help us |
| 1:12.9 | understand all the forces at play and what we can do to minimize our suffering is Lou Ziska, |
| 1:19.2 | Associate Professor at the Millman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Thanks for joining me, |
| 1:24.6 | Lou. I'm happy to be here. You recently co-authored a study that looks at how climate change is impacting |
| 1:31.3 | allergy season here in North America. |
| 1:33.3 | Tell me what you found. |
| 1:35.3 | We've been looking at the role of changing winters, that winters are becoming more wild, |
| 1:43.3 | and that they're starting later and spring is starting earlier |
| 1:46.9 | and falls are being delayed that increase in the frost-free season is allowing greater exposure |
| 1:55.0 | of plant-based pollen to people who are allergic to that pollen. So with that change in seasonality, |
| 2:02.9 | in addition to changes in carbon dioxide |
| 2:06.1 | and other things that make plants grow more, |
| 2:09.4 | we're seeing a increase in the overall amount of pollen, |
| 2:13.9 | but also the time in which you are exposed to that pollen. |
| 2:17.4 | So we think those are two of the underlying reasons why the pollen season is becoming more severe. |
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