Food Allergy Misdiagnosis, New York Times
This New York Times article,"Telling Food Allergies From False Alarms" By TARA PARKER-POPE is a must read for everyone, just what I’ve been talking about here and here and what we touched upon at Sunday’s Worry-Free Dinner.
More than 11 million Americans, including 3 million children, are estimated to have food allergies, most commonly to milk, eggs, peanuts and soy. The prevalence among children has risen 18 percent in the past decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the increase appears to be real, so does the increase in misdiagnosis...While the blood tests can help doctors identify potentially risky foods, they aren’t always reliable. A 2007 issue of The Annals of Asthma, Allergy & Immunology reported on research at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, finding that blood allergy tests could both under- and overestimate the body’s immune response. A 2003 report in Pediatrics said a positive result on a blood allergy test correlated with a real-world food allergy in fewer than half the cases...“The only true test of whether you’re allergic to a food or not is whether you can eat it and not react to it,” said Dr. David Fleischer, an assistant professor of pediatrics at National Jewish Health.
Read the whole article here.
More than 11 million Americans, including 3 million children, are estimated to have food allergies, most commonly to milk, eggs, peanuts and soy. The prevalence among children has risen 18 percent in the past decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the increase appears to be real, so does the increase in misdiagnosis...While the blood tests can help doctors identify potentially risky foods, they aren’t always reliable. A 2007 issue of The Annals of Asthma, Allergy & Immunology reported on research at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, finding that blood allergy tests could both under- and overestimate the body’s immune response. A 2003 report in Pediatrics said a positive result on a blood allergy test correlated with a real-world food allergy in fewer than half the cases...“The only true test of whether you’re allergic to a food or not is whether you can eat it and not react to it,” said Dr. David Fleischer, an assistant professor of pediatrics at National Jewish Health.
Read the whole article here.
Comments
We need to keep emphasizing that a reputable allergist, using the best tests available, helps people decide how to best handle their, or their child's, food allergies. We need the support of the medical community, our schools, our neighbors, our families and the media as we make our way through the confusing and conflicting information we sometimes receive. Let's keep talking!
The Food Allergy Assistant
www.foodallergyassistant.com
We found out about my son's peanut allergy because of the shocking reaction (hives everywhere/mouth hurting/coughing/hoarseness/clutching at throat/etc) he had after putting a Reese' piece in his mouth at age 3. The allergist "confirmed" the allergy with a skin test and prescribed an epipen. He has had blood tests since then.
After reading the article and seeing the report on the Today show, it almost sounds as though doctors are diagnosing food allergies based purely on blood tests (and/or maybe skin tests) without a reaction ever having occurred. Did anyone else get that impression?
And to MS2001 - the diagnosis of MY child desensitizes people to your struggle. My 5 yo has continued to be a non-reactive kid. While I suspect this may be because she was never truly allergic to other than milk - or that she's perhaps outgrown - the medical community does not so suspect. So, when I take my child to public school and explain to her supervisors that she shouldn't eat anything that isn't sent from home and that children should wash their hands after eating to avoid contaminating the classroom with allergens - that school will think those safeguards are good enough for life threatening food allergies, because they will most likely be all that is required for my non-reactive but diagnosed kid to glide through school in her normal non-reactive state. I'll be seen as the benchmark for what's good enough - and you'll be seen as an alarmist rather than a mom trying to protect a kid prone to reactions.
Pushing the medical community to give something other than an "avoid and carry" to their allergen naive and non-reactive patients is in everyone's interests.
As you may have guessed, I'm on board with Nat'l Jewish - challenges are the way to go. They need to be more available and more doctors need to be willing to do them when the test scores are high but not cooberated by a history. I'm waiting over a year to get same from the one folk in my area who will do them.