Study may produce pollen forecasts

Press, 22 June 1989, Page 18

Study may produce pollen forecasts

By

DEBORAH McPHERSON

Pollen forecasts for allergy sufferers may become a reality if research by two Massey University botanists is successful.

Dr Clive Cornford and Dr David Fountain, lecturers in the university’s zoology department, are working on a study they hope will eventually link asthma with the type of plants that grow in New Zealand. If successful, the botanists may be able to produce a calendar and map which will help alert asthmatics and other allergy sufferers to the seasons during which they may be most at risk from irritating pollen. In the long term, they hope to be able to produce extracts of native

pollens which could be used by doctors skin testing patients to diagnose the cause of allergic reactions. Dr Cornford said pollen monitoring overseas was heavily supported by drug companies so that allergy sufferers could be kept informed of hazardous periods when atmospheric counts were high. He said the university’s study had been going for only 18 months, so pollen forecasting could still be five to 10 years away. Such research would also depend on financial support from the private sec-

tor. A national survey of airborne grass pollens — a major cause of hay-fever-type allergies, was completed over the summerly the university and D.S.I.R. scientists. Further information is being collected by Dr Fountain and Dr Cornford on other types of pollen known to cause allergies, such as macrocarpa, ragwort, privet, plantain and ryegrass. The scientists are not looking only at pollens, but also at the time of year particular plants flower and the way cer-

tain weather conditions or winds carry pollen around New Zealand in the upper atmosphere. Their study is financed until the end of the year by the Asthma Foundation of New Zealand. The botanists were also working with a medical team of asthma experts at Greenlane Hospital in Auckland. The team hoped to present its findings on a possible link between asthma and pollen from the privet tree at the Australian and New Zealand Thoracic Society’s conference in Rotorua in August.