Posted by
Andrews on Thursday, March 12, 2009 4:53:00 PM
Often when discussing environmentalism, one topic that comes up is allergies. According to those who worry about "environmental toxins", it is constant exposure to "chemicals" that we have seen an explosion of allergies. Now, I do not argue that constant exposure can trigger allergies, latex allergies for example are well known to have precisely that cause. On the other hand I think the explosion of allergies can be attributed to a few other causes.
First, in the case of truly severe allergies we have a simple cause of their increase, survival. Before the ready availability of antihistamines, steroids and other chemicals, those with lethal allergies often did not survive long enough to be diagnosed. If you go into shock at the slightest hint of peanuts, you have little chance of surviving without modern medicine.
And modern medicine is behind the second cause of increase, diagnosis. In the past many with more moderate allergies were simply not diagnosed. John did not suffer from celiac disease, he just had a bad stomach. He did not have peanut allergies, he had hives. And many more moderate allergies were never even noticed, much less diagnosed. Only with modern medicine, and the wealth to perform a battery of tests for known allergens do we diagnose most cases of allergies.
The final cause is the one likely to make some people upset, but humans are the third cause. As such allergies have been hyped by pop culture and quack physicians as the cause of all sort of ill defined syndromes (along with Lyme Disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, liver flukes, etc.) many people have come to believe they have allergies that are not recognized by conventional medicine. However there exist many doctors on the edge of respectability who will diagnose rather dubious illnesses, which often serve to inflate the number of diagnosed allergies.
Now none of this is meant to argue there has not been a change in the number of allergies. But just as with
the increase in the number of reported cases of autism, I have to say that the massive increases reported are partly explained by factors other than a true increase in incidence. And, that being the case, the arguments for environmental causes seem much less persuasive.