Most Peanut Allergies Overstated

From the Boston Globe: "Peanut Allergy Epidemic May Be Overstated by Dr. Darshak Sanghavi | January 30, 2006

I’ve selected a few points – but the whole article is worth reading.

• But the medical research suggests that severe peanut allergies are not as common as people think and are surprisingly difficult to diagnose accurately. And although, as a parent, it may seem that peanut allergies have reached epidemic proportions, the evidence is surprisingly thin.

• According to Anne Munoz-Furlong, a researcher and the founder of the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, an advocacy group, today about 25 percent of parents believe that their children have food allergies, although only about 4 percent really do. And even among children with true allergies caused by harmful IgE, only a tiny fraction will have life-threatening reactions, called anaphylaxis.

• … the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2004 reported that the average person’s chance of food-induced anaphylaxis is about 4 in 100,000 per year. Roughly the same number of Americans each year die from lightning strikes as from peanut allergies.

• A well-publicized household telephone survey published last year in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology suggested that rates of peanut allergies among children had doubled from 0.4 percent of the total population to 0.8 percent between 1997 and 2002. But the data were not verified by allergy tests, and it’s not clear whether the numbers are meaningful.

• The only 100 percent reliable way to tell if someone has a peanut allergy is to feed them peanuts or a placebo in a clinical setting to see if a reaction occurs — a so-called food challenge. But because of the cost and the slight risk of precipitating a severe reaction, this test is not often done.

• Finally, despite their best attempts to avoid peanuts and carefully read labels, the average person with true peanut allergy still gets a reaction every three to five years.

So yes … your child could die. But probably won’t. And the odds of your kid dying from some other reason – bus accident, drug OD, guns (the most likely reason), lightning, pedophile kidnapping or some really mean bullies (columbine or virginia tech anyone?) is actually much higher.