How much do you imagine is the impact of something as "trivial" as hay fever on the country's economy? Let's say each employee misses just an hour of work a week this spring due to allergic rhinitis. Multiply that by 20 to 50 million Americans estimated to suffer from hay fever, and you're looking at loss of millions of hours of work productivity due to pollen allergies!

"That means the potential loss of millions of hours of work productivity, not to mention the associated economic costs," she said. Some estimates suggest that nearly 4 million days of missed work each year due to allergy symptoms.

Now if only people could find a way to manage their allergies, I'm sure that figure doesn't have to be that high!