Word: reaction
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...families like the Fradins, however, knowing the why of food allergies is less important than knowing whether their children will be affected - and how. (Noah has a brother who has no food allergies.) Because allergic reactions to food can vary, even within the same person, allergists often shrug when it comes to advising parents about forecasting anything about their child's next reaction. "We really have no test that can tell us who is apt to have a severe, life-threatening reaction and who is more like the vast majority who will never have that kind of reaction," says...
...about when and even how to inject the lifesaving epinephrine. "Our allergist said, 'Here you go. Here's a prescription and see you in a year,' " says Dena Friedel, an Ohio mom whose daughter was diagnosed with a peanut allergy when she was 2. When her daughter had a reaction several months later, Friedel didn't know when to use the syringe and called 911 instead. The EMT told her she had made the right decision, but when they reached the hospital, "the doctor yelled at me and said I should have used the EpiPen," she says...
...very few people with a peanut allergy die from it. In fact, a 2003 study led by Dr. Scott Sicherer, a Mount Sinai pediatrician, showed that 90% of peanut-allergic children who got peanut butter on their skin developed nothing more than a red rash; none developed a systemic reaction in which their airways swelled up. The same went for smelling peanuts. Thirty peanut-allergic children were asked to sniff peanut butter and a placebo paste for 10 minutes each, and none developed a reaction to the peanut butter. Only one child had difficulty breathing - and that was after sniffing...
...would make people less or even no longer allergic," says Dr. Wesley Burks, chief of pediatric allergy and immunology at Duke University Medical Center. On average, children treated this way for a year are able to tolerate the protein equivalent of 15 peanuts, while the untreated group developed allergic reactions after 1 ½ peanuts. For parents, allowing their kids to participate in the study was a leap of faith. "Doing this was the lesser of two evils," says Kimberly Carter, a Virginia resident whose daughter Hannah, 5, received a peanut-allergy diagnosis at a year old. "I was sure that...
Hannah is now on a one-month reprieve from her daily pudding treatments; in four weeks, she will be challenged again with the same 5,000-mg dose of peanut flour. If she does not have a reaction, Burks will deem her "peanut tolerant" and allergy-free. If that happens, she will be among the first generation to conquer a food allergy. And perhaps it will be this scientific success that will provide the ultimate antidote to the hype and hyperbole. "We want people to understand what they have to do in case of an allergic reaction...