The nose knows: Allergy season here with vengeance (AP)

There may be a whiff of truth to claims by allergy sufferers who sniffle that this season is, well, a bigger headache than years past.

And now, more bad news: It's also lasting longer, prolonging the misery of the millions of people for whom spring is a punishment, not a pleasure.

Heavy snow and rain in some parts of the country have nourished a profusion of tree pollen, while a sudden shift to warm, sunny weather has made its release more robust. The deluges and, in some places, flooding have pumped up the volume on mold. Add in the wind, and the suffering skyrockets.

Warnings about the difficult season have come from allergy specialists from New York to Atlanta, Chicago to California.

"This past week has been one of the worst ever," rasped Lynne Ritchie, 70, as she bought allergy medicine this week at a Manhattan drugstore.

Dr. Stanley Schwartz hears that from patients all the time � every year, in fact, he noted with a wry smile.

"Literally, every year is the worst year," said Schwartz, chief of allergy and rheumatology for Kaleida Health and the University at Buffalo. "Now it may actually be, but when it's there and you're feeling it, you don't remember what last year was like."

What is certain is that allergy seasons in general have been getting longer and more challenging, said Angel Waldron, spokeswoman for the Asthma and Allergy Foundation.

"We do know that climate change and warmer temperatures are allowing trees to pollinate longer than usual," she said. "Although people feel things are worse than ever before, it's actually because of the longer season. It's a longer time to endure."

Pollen counts and allergy attacks vary widely from region to region, locality to locality and day to day, and no one entity tracks the full complexity of their ups and downs across the country. But everything is ripe this year for a historic season.

It's been an exceptionally rainy spring in much of the country, with several states east of the Mississippi River setting records for the wettest April since 1895. That means luxuriously blooming trees and a similar effect on mold.

"The mold will grow under the fallen leaves from last season," Schwartz said. "So if it's very wet, it isn't just the blooming plants but it's also the mold, and many people are allergic to multiple airborne allergens."

The Asthma and Allergy Foundation lists Knoxville, Tenn.; Louisville, Ky.; Charlotte, N.C.; Jackson, Miss.; and Chattanooga, Tenn.; as its "2011 spring allergy capitals," using a scoring system that measures airborne grass, tree and weed pollen; mold spores; the number of allergy medications used per patient; and the number of allergy specialists per capita.

Four of those five cities are in states � Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky � that all had drenching springs and significant flooding. But the suffering isn't limited to the South.

The highest tree pollen count in three years triggered a dangerous air quality warning Friday in Chicago, where allergist Dr. Joseph Leija warned in a statement: "Itchy eyes, stuffy noses and fatigue will be common among Chicagoans with sensitive respiratory systems."

In Los Angeles, rain, a heat wave and the Santa Ana winds combined for a brutal stretch in February. To north in San Jose, pollen counts are on the rise with the start of grass season, allergist Dr. Alan Heller said Friday.

The National Allergy Bureau shows high pollen counts in the Northeast this week, including Albany and New York City, with their birch, oak and maple trees, and Oxford, Ala., where walnut, pine and willows are in bloom. The bureau is part of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

"It's been a very bad season so far. ... A lot of people suffering," said Dr. William Reisacher, director of the allergy center at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.

"A lot of people who haven't suffered in previous years have come in for the first time in several years with symptoms," Reisacher said, noting that the Northeast's sudden change from cold, snowy winter to warm spring has worsened the situation.

Full circle round, back in the South, the Atlanta Allergy and Asthma Clinic has seen no letup since late February, when unseasonable warmth had Dr. Kevin Schaffer describing this year's pollen levels as "off the charts."

Medications used in the past may not be as effective if symptoms are worse this year, Reisacher said. Many of his patients in New York have required multiple drugs, including nasal sprays, oral antihistamines and eye drops.

Madison Sasser, a 21-year-old senior at Belmont University in Nashville, left her doctor's office with two kinds of nose spray and eye drops Thursday after already enduring an allergy-related sinus infection three weeks ago � right before final exams.

"It's been awful," she said. "My eyes have been so itchy and red, and I sneeze and cough. It's just been terrible."

In Dallas, a windy spring is helping to scatter the allergens.

"We've had heavy winds and the tree pollens were in heavy bloom, and all the wind was causing a lot of people a lot of problems," said Jill Weinger, physician's assistant at the Dallas Allergy & Asthma Center, where some patients were returning for treatment after years of absence.

In Louisville, Ky., 20-year-old Jared Casey's glazed eyes scanned the aisles of a Walgreens drugstore Thursday afternoon. He greeted the allergy season with an over-the-counter purchase of Claritin-D at the beginning of February � six weeks earlier than last year.

He switched to Zyrtec at the beginning of May, when his ears began plugging up, and said his symptoms are lasting longer than in years past.

"It's been a lot worse," he said. "My ears have stayed plugged up for two weeks."

Kristen Fennimore of New Egypt, N.J., counts herself among the than 35 million Americans plagued by seasonal allergic rhinitis � also known as hay fever, a condition characterized by sneezing, stuffiness, a runny nose and the telltale itchiness in the nose, roof of the mouth, throat, eyes or ears.

Until recently, the 28-year-old legal assistant said, she was feeling pretty good and thought she might get off easy this year. But pride goes before a fall.

"I was going around bragging how my allergies weren't bad this year," she said. "Then this week, it's been horrible."

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Thompson reported from Buffalo, N.Y. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Verena Dobnik in New York City, Josh Lederman in Trenton, N.J., Pinky Mehta in Louisville and Joe Edwards in Nashville.

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Online:

Pollen counts by region: http://tinyurl.com/

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Iraq, South Africa buck rising life expectancy (AP)

GENEVA � Average life expectancies are increasing steadily in most of the world, but men in Iraq and women in South Africa are bucking that trend with notable drops in their time on Earth.

The World Health Organization said Friday the average life expectancy in Iraq fell to 66 years in 2009 from 68 years in 2000, when dictator Saddam Hussein was still in power.

But while Iraqi girls born in 2009 � the most recent year for which figures are available � could still expect to live to 70, boys' life expectancy dropped sharply to 62 years, compared with 65 years in 2000.

"The figures reflect the chaos from the conflict and the impact on health systems," said Colin Mathers, one of the coordinators of WHO's annual World Health Statistics report.

In South Africa, life expectancy for women fell to 55 years from 59 years in 2000 and 68 years in 1990 � a reflection of the country's high HIV infection rate. Men's life expectancy in 2009 remained stable at 54 years compared with the figure nine years earlier, but was down from 59 in 1990.

Chad, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica were the only other countries where average life expectancy dropped between 2009 and 2000.

Figures on life expectancy are the clearest single indicator of health around the world. And globally, they are increasing.

A girl born today can expect to live for 71 years. This was up from 68 years at the start of the century.

Men lagged behind, with a global average life expectancy of 66 years, up from 64 years, the report found.

The combined figure showed an increase of two years since 2000, to 68.

However, among both sexes there are still wide variations from country to country.

Girls born in the Central African Republic and Chad today are likely to live for just 48 years � a combination of poverty, limited medical care and high maternal mortality rates. Male life expectancy is lowest in the small southern African country of Malawi, at 44 years.

On the other end of the scale is Japan, where women can expect to live for 86 years � almost until the end of the 21st century. Men can expect to live longest in the tiny state of San Marino, which is surrounded by Italy.

In the United States, female life expectancy at birth averaged 81 years in 2009, up from 80 years in 2000. American boys born today can expect to live for 76 years, WHO said. A five-year gap between the sexes is average across much of the world.

The small East African country of Eritrea has continued its steep rise in life expectancy. In 2009 the average was 66 years, up from 61 years in 2000 and just 36 years in 1990.

The figures are among over 100 health indicators that WHO tracks in its 193 member states, including mother and child mortality, obesity, disease prevalence and health expenditure.

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Online:

http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/2011/en/index.html

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Experts debate destroying last smallpox viruses (AP)

LONDON � Smallpox, one of the world's deadliest diseases, eradicated three decades ago, is kept alive under tight security today in just two places � the United States and Russia.

Many other countries say the world would be safer if those stockpiles of the virus were destroyed.

Now for the fifth time, at a World Health Organization meeting next week, they will push again for the virus' destruction. And again it seems likely their efforts will be futile.

U.S. and Russian government officials say it is essential they keep some smallpox alive in case a future biological threat demands more tests with the virus. They also say the virus samples are still needed to develop experimental vaccines and drugs.

It was in 1996 that WHO's member countries first agreed smallpox should be destroyed. But they have repeatedly delayed a demand for destruction so that scientists could develop safer smallpox vaccines and drugs. That's now been done: There are two vaccines, a third in the works, and there are drugs for treating it, but not curing it.

Yet even if most of WHO's member countries vote to set a new date for destruction, the agency doesn't have the power to enforce the decision.

The scientific community remains divided over whether the smallpox samples should be destroyed. The respected journal Nature editorialized against it earlier this year, arguing that scientists need the ability to do further research, and perhaps develop new vaccines and treatments in an era of possible biological attack. However, one of the most prominent figures in wiping out the deadly, disfiguring disease is in favor of destroying all remnants of it.

"It would be an excellent idea to destroy the smallpox viruses," said Dr. Donald A. Henderson, who led WHO's eradication effort in the 1970s. "This is an organism to be greatly feared."

He says possession of smallpox by those not authorized to have it should be made a crime against humanity and that international authorities should prosecute any country found with it.

A report by independent researchers commissioned by WHO last year concluded there was no compelling scientific reason to hang onto the viruses. Yet other scientists contend the stockpiles could still provide valuable information in the future.

Smallpox is one of the most lethal diseases in history. For centuries, it killed about one-third of the people it infected, including Queen Mary II of England, and left most survivors with deep scars on their faces from the hideous pus-filled lesions. The last known case was in Britain in 1978 when a university photographer who worked above a lab handling smallpox died after being accidentally exposed to it from the building's air duct system.

Smallpox vaccines are made from vaccinia, a milder related virus. "We have many ways of looking at smallpox, including gene mapping, that means we don't need the actual (smallpox) virus," said Henderson, who is now with the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

American and Russian officials disagree.

Dr. Nils Daulaire, director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Global Affairs, said the U.S. will again ask WHO to postpone a decision calling for the stockpile's destruction. He said U.S. scientists need more time to finish research into how well new vaccines and drugs work against the virus. But he acknowledged U.S. officials also want their own supply in case terrorists unleash smallpox as a biological weapon and additional study is needed.

A scientist at the Russian laboratory where smallpox is kept, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said the virus should be kept in case similar ones pop up in the future and more studies are needed.

Meanwhile, officials from developing countries are anxious to close the last chapter on the disease.

"There is a consensus to destroy the viruses, so how come we're in this situation where we're pandering to the U.S. and Russia?" asked Lim Li Ching, a biosafety expert at Third World Network, a group that lobbies on behalf of developing countries.

Oyewale Tomori, a virology professor at Redeemer's University in Nigeria, said most African countries want smallpox destroyed. Tomori also sits on a WHO Advisory Committee on smallpox. "Africa is one part of the world where a biological attack with smallpox is likely to have a more devastating effect," he said.

Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director-general for health security and the environment, said the agency remains concerned about the possibility of smallpox's return. "The chance of an outbreak is reasonably low, but not zero," he said. With the new vaccines and drugs, Fukuda was optimistic any smallpox outbreak would be stamped out relatively quickly though acknowledged any new cases might spark global alarm.

"If smallpox were to reappear, we would be in a much better situation than in the past, considering the vaccine supplies and strategies that have been demonstrated to work," he said. He guessed that stamping out a smallpox outbreak would be faster than the four months it took to mostly end the 2003 global outbreak of SARS, where doctors could only isolate patients and trace suspect cases. With smallpox, Fukuda said countries could quickly vaccinate people in surrounding areas and that drugs could be sent to treat patients.

Fukuda said many rich countries like the U.S. have their own smallpox vaccine stockpiles. WHO also has at least 30 million doses for poor countries in case the virus re-emerges, but that supply uses older vaccines that can trigger AIDS in people who have HIV.

David Evans, a smallpox expert at the University of Alberta, who was part of the WHO team that inspected the U.S. and Russian labs holding smallpox several years ago, says he doubts the virus could escape from either facility. The viruses are kept at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology in Novosibirsk, Siberia.

Laboratories where smallpox is kept have the highest possible containment measures. Scientists who work with the virus use fingerprint or retinal scans to get inside, wear a full-body suit including gloves and goggles, and shower with strong disinfectant before leaving the lab and taking off the suit. The U.S. smallpox viruses, which include samples from Britain, Japan and the Netherlands, are stored in liquid nitrogen.

Rumors about stockpiles in countries like Iraq and North Korea have never been proven, and Evans said it would be too difficult to experiment with smallpox and keep it a secret. "The nations I would worry about, weird places run by odd dictators, they're just not capable of doing this stuff," he said.

Evans thinks it's unlikely terrorists would resort to smallpox in a biological attack. "If you want to disrupt countries, there are lots of easier ways to do it than to experiment with something so dangerous," he said.

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AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe in Atlanta and Associated Press Writer Mansur Mirovalev in Moscow contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS Corrects to University of Alberta instead of Edmonton in 22nd paragraph)

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