Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESAround the world, children are far more likely than ever before to develop food allergies.
Recent inquiries into the deaths of two British teenagers after eating sesame and peanut highlighted the sometimes tragic consequences. In August, a six-year-old girl in Western Australia died as the result of a dairy allergy.
The rise in allergies in recent decades has been particularly noticeable in the West. Food allergy now affects about 7% of children in the UK and 9% of those in Australia, for example. Across Europe, 2% of adults have food allergies.
Life-threatening reactions can be prompted even by traces of the trigger foods, meaning patients and families live with fear and anxiety. The dietary restrictions which follow can become a burden to social and family lives.
While we can't say for sure why allergy rates are increasing, researchers around the world are working hard to find ways to combat this phenomenon.
Given the penchant for “modern” parents to avoid vaccinations and scrub every child clean of every germ possible, we’re raising generations of people with seriously reduced resistance to even common, normally harmless, (yet annoying) “childhood” diseases. It’s no wonder people are getting sicker quicker and dying earlier than in previous generation. Parents should allow their kids to play in the dirt and build immunities in many ways. If you don’t do that you breed puny kids who sicken and die from things people in my generation never worried about because they were not dangerous.