Billions of people worldwide - an estimated 30 to 40 percent of the global population - have some form of allergy. Even more concerningly, over the last decade, the number of people diagnosed with allergy has been steadily increasing. This book is a holistic examination of the phenomenon of allergies, from their first medical description in 1819 to the mind-bending recent development of biologics and immunotherapies that are giving the most severely impacted patients hope. This is the story of allergies: what they are, why we have them, and what that might mean about the fate of humanity in a rapidly changing world.
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