Allergy vaccine shows hay fever promise

A six-week vaccine regimen appears able to reduce hay fever symptoms by 60% for at least two years, according to a preliminary study.

Researchers say the vaccine approach avoids the side effects of the steroids often used to treat allergies. And it gives a faster result than pollen injections, which condition the immune system over a course of several years, they add.

The vaccine, which uses snippets of DNA to train the immune system, has shown great promise in the new trial. “It is the first time the approach has been applied to this disease,” says Toshiaki Kawakami at La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology in California, US.