We’ve conquered most childhood infections, but extreme reactions to everyday substances pose a new threat.
The first indication that something was not quite right with David Adams was subtle, a mild rash around his mouth after nursing.
LUCKILY, THE SECOND CLUE, at the age of 3 months, was not so subtle: angry hives that erupted over his entire body during a plane trip. After the family returned home to Georgia, a specialist determined that David was among the 6 to 8 percent of children under the age of 3 with an allergy to food—in his case, peanuts.
His sensitivity was so acute that the hives may have been caused by the residue of peanuts on his parents’ fingers, and the rash by his mother’s eating a peanut-butter sandwich and excreting tiny amounts of peanut protein in her breast milk. What made the episode lucky was this: on a day two years later, when David began vomiting and gasping after chomping an energy bar that had escaped his parents’ anti-peanut scrutiny, his mother could inject him with epinephrine and save his life. Implausible as it seems, David’s condition is at the cutting edge of modern pediatric medicine, right up there with hay fever.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/965745.asp?0ql=c9pOur life and our children or Butchering innocent Muslims. Bush's historical choice.
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