Word: allergen
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Small changes at home, such as using allergen-proof mattress and pillow covers and vacuuming with a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter, can greatly reduce a child's asthma symptoms, according to a study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Working in low-income, inner-city homes where children suffered from asthma triggered by indoor allergens--dust mites, cockroaches, pets, tobacco smoke or mold--researchers taught families how to reduce the level of those pollutants. A year later, children in those homes reported three fewer weeks of asthma symptoms than did kids in untreated homes...
That kind of fine-tuning necessarily makes the immune system complicated--but to understand the vaccination revolution, you first have to understand the complications. The simplest immune reaction--triggered by a mosquito bite, for example, or an allergen--is inflammation. When the insect bites, the immune system uses cellular troops that have had no special training. Cells called leukocytes, neutrophils and mast cells routinely cruise the bloodstream sniffing for an unfamiliar chemical signature. If they find it, they signal for reinforcements that swarm to kill the invader--the equivalent of an infantry attack...
...Still, as devastating as the effects of an errant allergen may be, it pains me to realize that if I were going to school now, instead of 20 years ago, my childhood lunchtime memories would have been hugely altered. For 13 years, I carried a brown bag to school, which always contained my beloved peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich. Day in and day out, I ate my peanut butter. And I enjoyed it every single day. And nobody bothered to tell me I was consuming the edible equivalent of an anthrax bomb...
...that it can "naturally" produce a toxin for corn borers, one of the more significant pests that plague corn crops. The pesticide produced by the artificially enhanced corn, however, is not quite as harmless to human health as initially predicted: the transplanted gene also codes for a human allergen. Recognizing the uncertainty, if not the danger, involved with this GM organism, the U.S. government revoked the right of Aventis--the company that produces StarLink--to plant the seeds once the strain was detected in the food supply...
...dust, a level known to trigger allergies, in 44 million homes. In half of these, they're fivefold higher, a significant danger for asthma sufferers. What to do? Keep room humidity low (mites love moisture), wash linens in hot water and zip up duvets and pillows in impermeable, allergen-proof covers. Alas, these measures won't safeguard you against yet another intruder: cockroach droppings are present in the beds of 6 million homes. Any sure solution? Extermination...