Weekly Online Lesson Online Lesson Archive Grade Level: 6-10 Subject: Health

Allergy Season

Wellpoint Health Networks, one of America's largest health insurers, is petitioning the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to make three popular allergy medications available over-the-counter. The three makers of the drugs, Schering-Plough Corp., Aventis SA, and Pfizer Inc., say more research is needed before the products should be sold without a prescription; however, their ads claim the drugs are absolutely safe. One is already available over-the-counter in Canada.

Industry experts say the issue has more to do with money than health and safety. If the drugs are approved for non-prescription sales, health insurers would no longer have to cover the costs. Wellview alone would save about $45 million a year.

The pharmaceuticals on the other hand could lose billions in revenue. The three drugs combined generated $4.7 billion in sales last year

This week you will learn about the medical condition at the center of this big-money debate. This week's lesson is about allergies and the 50 million Americans who suffer from them.

Allergy Learning Lab

The first site for this week's lesson is the Allergy Learning Lab, an online resource for people with allergies. You'll find a lot of great information here, but start with Allergies 101 on the left. Read the introduction, which talks about ways allergies can affect you, and then click Next Article at the end to move to the next topic.

Allergy Q&A, the first article after the intro, contains some basic information about allergies in a question/answer format. What is an allergy? What are some of the things people can be allergic to? Is there a cure for allergies?

Continue reading through the topics in order, or click on the topics that interest you most (especially if you suffer from a particular kind of allergy).

American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology

Turn now to the AAAAI site, a professional organization for those who study and treat allergic diseases. Many of the resources here are for the media, but you will find some good general information in the Patient/Public Resource Center. From here, use the drop-down menus to choose a topic you want to investigate, and then click Go. Start with Myth vs. Reality to learn the truth about common allergy myths.

Next read the Tips to Remember page (available in both English and Spanish) to learn some helpful tips about living and coping with allergies. There are a number of Tips topics, but read Food allergy, Indoor allergens, Outdoor allergens, and Stinging insect allergy.

What are the most common food allergens? What are several ways to control dust mites? Why are outdoor allergies usually worse during the spring and summer months? What is anaphylaxis and how can it be dangerous?

Pollen.com

Do you know there are pollen reports, just like there are weather reports? Pollen, as you learned, is a plant substance many people are allergic to. The higher the pollen count in the air, the worse the allergic reaction. Visit Pollen.com to see what the pollen conditions are like where you live. Click your location on the map, or enter your zip code.

What is the four-day pollen forecast? What are the predominant pollens? To see what these pollens look like, click Pollen Library and click the name of the pollens listed in the report (if no pollens are listed, choose Ragweed or any others). You will see where the pollens are, and what the pollen grain looks like.

When is the pollen in the air? What is the scientific name of the plant? How big is the pollen grain?

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