The Sun /Sunday, June 8, 2014 NATIONALIHEALTH NEWS www.sunnewspapers.net WIRE Page 5 New allergy tablets offer alternative to shots TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - For decades, seasonal allergy sufferers had two therapy options to ease the misery of hay fever. They could swallow pills or squirt nasal sprays ev- ery day for brief reprieves from the sneezing and itchy eyes. Or they could get allergy shots for years to gradually reduce their immune system's over-reaction. Now patients can try another type of therapy to train their immune system, new once-a-day tablets that dissolve quickly under the tongue and steadily raise toler- ance to grass or ragweed pollen, much like the shots. "It's been several decades since the last big breakthrough," Cleveland Clinic allergy specialist Dr. Rachel Szekely said. The downside: The pills must be started a few months before the grass or ragweed pollen season. That means it's too late for people with grass allergies, but the time is now for ragweed allergy sufferers. The Food and Drug Administration in April approved two tablets from Merck, Grastek for grass pollen and Ragwitek for ragweed, plus a grass pollen tablet called Oralair from Stallergenes. The tablets could become popular with people who dislike pills that can make them drowsy or don't provide enough relief. They'll likely appeal even more to patients with severe allergies who fear needles or can't make frequent trips to the allergist, key reasons that only about 5 percent of U.S. patients who would benefit from allergy shots get them. Meanwhile, new treat- ments for other types of allergies, including to peanuts and eggs, are in various stages of testing and could turn out to be big advances. Drugmaker Merck & Co. has a tablet for house AP FILE PHOTO In a Monday, April 5, 2010, photo, Shane Nantz kicks up a cloud of pollen as he mows the front yard of his West Charlotte, N.C., home. Seasonal allergy sufferers can try newly FDA-approved types of immunotherapy, once-a-day tablets containing freeze-dried grass extract that dissolve quickly under the tongue, steadily lessening the excessive immune reaction much like the shots. dust mite allergies in final patient testing that could hit the market in two or three years, and it's considering other therapies. France's Stallergenes SA is testing a tablet for birch tree allergies and, with partner Shionogi & Co. Ltd. in Japan, tablets for allergies to dust mites and Japanese cedar pollen. Britain's Circassia Ltd. has a cat allergy treatment in final testing and six others in earlier testing. A handful of compa- nies also are looking at possible new ways to administer immu- notherapy, including drops under the tongue, capsules and skin patch- es, said Fort Lauderdale, Fla, allergist Dr. Linda Cox, former president of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. The new tablets are not right for everyone, particularly patients with allergies to multiple substances, Szekely cautioned. That was the case with one of her patients, 10-year-old Samantha Marshall of Mentor, Ohio, who has been getting allergy shots since last fall. "She's not loving them," said her mother, Rachel, who recently asked Szekely about switching to the tablets. Szekely explained that shots are more effective because Rachel is also al- lergic to weeds and dust mites, and the shots she receives are a customized mix of extracts to all those substances. The tablets are also pricey: Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J, is charging about $8.25 per daily tablet and Stallergenes about $10. Beetles ravaging Mount Rushmore drain budgets DENVER, Colo. (Bloomberg) Beetles are obliterating forests throughout Colorado and the West, draining budgets as property values decline and threatening tourism at national parks, including the home of Mount Rushmore. Voters in Colorado communities raised taxes to protect ski resorts that bring in $3 billion annually to the economy. The pine beetles, each the size of a rice grain, have devoured 25 percent of the woods in South Dakota's Black Hills, where the mountain with massive carvings of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt is the linchpin of a $2 billion-a-year tourism industry. "It's difficult to stop the spread," said Bill Smith, a South Dakota Agriculture Department conservation program administrator. "What we're trying to do is slow it down." The beetles' vast economic impact is emerging two decades into an epidemic fueled by climate change, overstocked forests and drought that wiped out 38,000 square miles - the size of Indiana and Rhode Island combined. PORT ORCHARD, Wash. (AP) -A Washington state judge on Friday said Casey Kasem's daughter, not her stepmother, is in charge of the medical care for the 82-year-old radio personality, who remains in critical con- dition with an infected bedsore. However, all members of Kasem's family can visit him at the hospital - just not at the same time, Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Jennifer Forbes ruled. Kasem has been receiving intravenous antibiotics and other care at St. Anthony Hospital in Gig Harbor, Wash., for a serious pressure ulcer he had when he was admitted on Sunday, according to As gray ghost forests dominate vistas in the Rockies, Tetons, Cascades and Sierras, officials from the U.S. Forest Service to state governments are search- ing for ways to counter the devastation. "There is always the question, 'When is the Forest Service going to take all the dead trees away?"' said Catherine Ross, executive director of the Winter Park-Fraser Chamber, 66 miles west of Denver. "I talk to them about the enormity of the problem. There are just so many dead trees out there." Infestation and disease threaten 94 national forest areas in 35 states, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said May 20 in Denver. The Forest Service is designating 45 million acres for priority restoration. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, D, who is seeking re-election, said in a letter to Vilsack that seven of the state's 13 national forests have "experienced such mas- sive infestation of beetles and other threats to their health they merit desig- nation in their entirety." Scientists say climate change is to blame: Winters haven't been cold enough to reduce beetle populations. The average U.S. temperature has increased as much a hospital statement. Hospital spokesman Scott Thompson said Friday he would make no comment beyond the statement that was issued Thursday. "Right now, Casey Kasem's health is declin- ing and (he) won't be with us much longer," daughter Kerri Kasem's spokesman, Danny Deraney, said in a statement. "I want to be there for my dad," Kerri Kasem said outside court Friday, KOMO-TV reported. "All of us. So if he does happen to open his eyes and look up, his entire family is there." 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