Hacker News Reader

It's all quite random and also depends on genetics. I lived in rural area with very little air pollution, played outside. Yet I got multiple allergies, including hay fever, and hay was plenty in the area. Many of my close relatives have some auto-immune related diseases as well.

These sort of events tend to happen at the statistical level, not the individual level. You can't disprove them from one instance of a negative outcome. It's like saying you smoke but never got cancer, or you don't smoke but still got cancer.

Licking dirt off your hands isn't the same as being exposed to pollen.

In an outdoor sandbox? Sure it is. Where do you think all that pollen goes when it falls out of the air?

Is there more or less pollen in rural areas?