From Allergic Living magazine, Spring 2005. IN LABS in universities and hospitals across North America and Europe, these are exciting and competitive times in allergy research. There are strong prospects for a vaccine that would significantly increase a peanut-allergic individual’s tolerance to the dread legume. And, while farther off into the future, scientists are speaking [...]

Yet-to-be released research on Montreal schoolchildren shows the incidence of peanut allergy has increased – to almost 2 per cent of pupils. This makes it the highest such prevalence ever measured. The findings are early results of the second phase in a study of peanut allergy incidence in pupils in kindergarten up to Grade 3 [...]

If a serious allergic reaction has left you too frightened to eat even ‘safe’ foods, there is help and you are not alone. IT WASN’T until Sandra Schwartz was on a camping trip in Northern Ontario in August 2005 that she felt the full force of the fear. Just a couple of days earlier, the [...]

The British Columbia Ministry of Education has issued a ministerial order that makes it a requirement for every public school district to have an anaphylaxis policy to protect allergic children. While not technically legislation – such as Sabrina’s Law in Ontario – such an order must be followed. In September, the ministry announced that policies [...]

Allergists are hopeful, but cautious, after a new Toronto-led study suggests we may soon have a test to predict who among the allergic is at most risk for a serious reaction, known as anaphylaxis. Published in the New England Journal of Medicine in January, the study showed levels in the blood of a chemical called platelet-activating [...]

Their second date was supposed to be a lovely evening in, complete with takeout vegetarian sushi that he was to buy at a place she trusted with her life. The first time they ever met, Lori Medoff, a Montreal optometrist and divorced mother of two, told Kenny Webber, the new man in her life, about [...]

Following is excerpted from our 20-page Special Report on the Future of Allergies, Asthma, Celiac in the Spring 2010 5th Anniversary edition of Allergic Living. Look a decade ahead and there’s big news: therapies for food allergies. And not just one. From herbal pills to vaccines and immunotherapy, expect a choice of treatments. IMAGINE AN allergy [...]

The answer to why a baby becomes an allergic child is the modern version of the Poincaré conjecture – a puzzle for which we have yet to find the solution. In this age of unparalleled understanding of the human body, scientists still don’t know why it is one child develops an allergic reaction to, say, [...]

It was a flight that Paige Humphreys and her family looked forward to every winter: from chilly Edmonton to Vancouver, Vancouver to sunny Maui. Along with the sunscreen and bathing suits, Humphreys, who has a severe allergy to tree nuts, diligently packed her own snacks as well as two Twinjects, and silently prayed that her [...]

Last October, an unusual outbreak of mumps occurred in Calgary and nearby Lethbridge, mainly among college students. To halt the spread, those aged 17 to 26 were urged to get a booster shot, and some 62,000 MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) boosters were given. But when six people developed symptoms similar to anaphylaxis, the program was [...]