News and Articles about allergies.

Buffalo News: No peanuts, please: Family helps others cope with dangerous allergies(April 2009)

An Orchard Park family takes a proactive approach to coping with children’s food allergies through a Web site and a nonprofit organization to educate families, schools and businesses
When Christine and Tom Popek think about their son Eddie’s peanut allergy, they remember the day of his first birthday party: May 19, 2007.
At a family bash in their Orchard Park backyard, Eddie was presented a store-bought birthday cake, decorated with his favorite character, Mickey Mouse.
But Eddie refused to eat the cake— or even touch it.
“What kid doesn’t love cake?” asked Christine Popek, recalling the moment.
“But you couldn’t get him to come anywhere near it,” said Tom Popek. “Then, later, we found out. The cake had nuts in it.”
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Chicago Tribune: State to squirrel feeder: Nuts to you! (April 2009)

MADISON, Wis. - The case of the unknown squirrel feeder may be a tough nut to crack.
But the state of Wisconsin is on it.
In a nutshell, the state sent a letter Monday to tenants of a downtown office building, asking whoever has been feeding the squirrels on the Capitol lawn to please stop.
It's not that the state has anything against squirrels, or nuts for that matter.
It's just that with thousands of school children touring the building each year, those with peanut allergies may be at risk thanks to an indiscriminate nut-tossing squirrel-lover.
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Medpage Today- AAAAI: Patch Helps Allergic Kids Tolerate Milk

Children with dairy allergies were able to tolerate significant quantities of cow's milk after treatment with an investigational dermal patch-based immunotherapy (Viaskin), a researcher said here.
In eight of 13 evaluable children receiving the treatment for three months in a placebo-controlled pilot trial, the maximum amount of milk they were able to tolerate increased at least threefold, reported Christophe Dupont, M.D., Ph.D., of Hopital Saint Vincent de Paul in Paris.
None of the seven children in the placebo group showed that high an increase in tolerance, he said here at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology meeting.
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Time Life - Going Nuts over nut allergies

"Susan Fradin has nightmares about Cheerios. Specifically, the Honey Nut variety. Her son Noah is allergic to peanuts and almonds, and her nighttime torment began during his first trip to sleepaway camp, when he was 9. Fradin, a former publicist in Los Angeles, worried that her son would eat cereal he shouldn't and go into anaphylactic shock. "I woke up in the middle of the night thinking, What if he eats Honey Nut Cheerios thinking they are regular Cheerios?" she says."

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NZ Herald - Crop this: Virgin takes off with nut-fuel (Feb 2009)

Oil usually used in lip balms has helped power a Virgin Atlantic jumbo jet into history as the first commercial airliner to be partly-run on biofuel - and Air New Zealand is tipped to follow within months.
But the Virgin flight from London to Amsterdam - powered by a biofuel made from babassu nuts and coconut oil - has been condemned as "high altitude greenwash" by Greenpeace. MORE

ABC News - THese Dogs Can Hunt: Sniffing out Peanuts (Jan 2009)

Sonja McConnell only skimmed the inch-long blurb about peanut detector dogs in a Reader's Digest clipping that her husbands' grandmother sent her. But she remembered that clipping later.

A mom is looking for a peanut-sniffing dog to help her son's deadly allergy.Last year, one week before Thanksgiving, McConnell, 31, crouched next to her four-year-old son Jett in a parking lot and held him down with the help of a stranger as he suffered a violent allergic reaction. McConnell gave Jett, who is allergic to peanuts and tree nuts, two shots of epinephrine and took him to the hospital.

Later, exhausted, McConnell replayed the scene, wondering how her son could cope with his allergies if he were alone or among strangers. Already the McConnell family, who live in Spokane, Wash., must avoid social functions, such as potlucks and birthday parties, and public areas to minimize Jett's risk of peanut exposure. Anything from food to lotions with nut oils to library books can be a potential allergy trigger.

"I thought, oh, my gosh, I have to get one of those dogs!" McConnell said.

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Science Daily - Of Mice and Peanuts: A new mouse model for peanut allergy (Jan 2009)

Chicago researchers report the development of a new mouse model for food allergy that mimics symptoms generated during a human allergic reaction to peanuts. The animal model provides a new research tool that will be invaluable in furthering the understanding of the causes of peanut and other food allergies and in finding new ways to treat and prevent their occurrence, according to experts at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that funded the research. MORE

National New Food Labels aimed at allergy suffers (July 2008)

"OTTAWA — Allergy sufferers will have a clearer indication whether prepackaged foods contain such ingredients as peanuts, milk, eggs, wheat and shellfish under new labelling requirements unveiled Wednesday by the federal government.

The announcement, made by Health Minister Tony Clement, comes after extensive lobbying from food-allergy groups. Mr. Clement said the more stringent regulations represent an important step forward, adding that, for some Canadians, allergen information can be “a matter of life or death.”

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Telegraph.co.uk Allergy suffers banned from joining the Army (July 2008)

The Army has barred people with food allergies from signing up because of the potential threat to their health, the MInistry of Defence has disclosed.

Military chiefs have ruled that anyone with allergies to nuts, wheat, eggs and other foods is at too great a risk of coming to harm and is therefore "automatically graded as unfit for service". MORE

Guardian Maltby youngster dies after eating chocolate (July 2008)

A MALTBY Comprehensive student with a severe peanut allergy has died after eating a chocolate bar.

Sixteen-year-old Dexter Skinner, who had just finished taking his GCSEs, spent two days in ICU at Rotherham Hospital suffering from anaphylactic shock. MORE

New York Post Lawsuits a nut case (June 2008)

June 4, 2008 -- A Long Island doctor claims American Airlines needlessly endangered her highly allergic 4-year-old son's life by serving peanuts on a flight she was assured would be nut-free.

Instead of helping her with her concerns, airline staffers bullied and belittled the doctor, reducing her and her son to tears, she says. Now she's suing the airline, saying it violated her son's civil rights.

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The London Free Press (UK) Low nut allergy risk exacts high penalty (MAY 2008)

"A letter banning nuts and nut products came home with both of my school-age children last week. This form letter bans all nut products from the class and describes in detail the anaphylactic reaction a child in the class will have from being near peanuts.

Life-threatening peanut allergies are serious, yet very rare. Only 1.5 per cent of children have a nut allergy, and only one quarter of these allergies is severe -- that's just one in every 267 kids.

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Daily Mail (UK): School bans 11-year-old girl with wheat-allergy from eating low fat crisps (April 2008)

An 11-year-old girl with a wheat allergy has been banned from eating special low fat crisps at school - because they are not healthy enough.

Furious mum Audrey Greenslade has now accused hard-hearted school bosses of discriminating against her distraught daughter Nicola.

The youngster is distressed after being barred from having low fat crisps at St Patrick's School in Collier Row, Romford, Essex.

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National Post: Family sues baseball team after Player cut over allergy , spat (Jan,7 2008)

"WINNIPEG - A Winnipeg family is crying foul, claiming their 15-year-old son was turfed from a championship baseball team after they expressed concerns about his severe food allergies.

Paul Kraemer was a member of a team that earned a trip to the nationals in Quebec City last summer. Jeffrey Kraemer said he was concerned about his son's health while away from home and made arrangements to join the team in Quebec. MORE

Daily Mail: Teenage girl suffering from Allergies "was killed by brushing her teeth" (Jan 2008)

" Francesca Sanna suffered from allergies and her parents think she could have had a reaction to toothpaste A young woman found dying by her parents was plagued by allergies and may have been killed by brushing her teeth, said her family.

Francesca Sanna, 19, who suffered from severe allergies, died of a massive anaphylactic shock, an inquest heard.

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