Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World

"Hay fever. Peanut allergies. Eczema. Either you have a frustrating allergy, or you know someone who does. Billions of people worldwide-an estimated 30 to 40 percent of the global population-have some form of allergy; millions have one severe enough to actively endanger their health. Even more concerningly, over the last decade, the number of people diagnosed with allergy has been steadily increasing. Medical anthropologist Theresa MacPhail, herself an allergy sufferer whose father died of a bee sting, set out to understand why. This book is a holistic examination of the phenomenon of allergies from its first medical description in 1819 to the mind-bending recent development of biologics and immunotherapies that are giving the most severely impacted patients hope. In pursuit of this story, Theresa spent time with hundreds of experts, patients and activists: she scaled a roof with an air quality controller who diligently counts pollen by hand for hours every day; met a mother struggling to use WIC benefits for her daughter with severe food allergies; shadowed doctors at some of the finest allergy clinics in the world; and discussed the intersecting problems of climate change, pollution, and pollen with biologists who study seasonal respiratory allergies"--