FOOD ALLERGIES
IN CHILDREN
An epidemic spiraling out of control
Written by JENNY DEAM
Ryan Clifford was 14 months old the first time he
went into anaphylactic shock. The little boy’s
grandmother was babysitting, and as she
strapped him into his car seat, she noticed his
nose was dripping furiously. She thought it curious, because
he had no other sign of a cold. Within minutes, she checked
the rear-view mirror and became panicked. Ryan’s face was
so swollen and contorted he was all but unrecognizable. His
tongue was lolling and he was gagging. His breath had turned
ragged. She called her husband, a retired cardiologist, who
told her to get him to a doctor as quickly as possible.
For four hours the doctor worked on him, pumping Ryan full of medicine and oxygen and watching for recovery. When Ryan’s
parents, Dina and Bill Clifford, arrived at the doctor’s office, they
had no idea what was happening to their son. “The doctor was
so scared it scared us,” the boy’s mother remembers.
Later at home they found the culprit: a peanut butter and
jelly sandwich with a toddler-sized nibble missing from one
corner. Although Dina and Bill had no known history of food
allergies in their family, it was terrifyingly obvious their son
did. That day, their life as a family changed forever.
“It’s not what most people think of when you say ‘allergies’,”
says Clifford, a 44-year-old business consultant from
Centennial. “That day the doctor told me, ‘You’re going to
have to be his advocate.’ I had no idea how challenging that
would be.” Ryan was pulled out of his preschool after the
doctor talked with its director, who worried the school did not
fully understand the seriousness of Ryan’s medical condition.
As a precaution, the Cliffords had their daughter, Carlee, tested
a few years later, before she entered kindergarten. Her
results showed allergy levels even higher than Ryan’s.
Life-threatening food allergies such as the peanut allergy Ryan
and Carlee have are a modern medical mystery. Researchers find
that over the past five years, the number of allergies in young
children has doubled for reasons no one knows. In addition,
some food allergies, such as dairy and wheat, that children once
outgrew by the time they entered school, are now taking much
longer to disappear, if they do at all.
Today, between 6 to 8 percent of children have a serious
food allergy, says Dr. David Fleischer, an associate professor
of pediatrics at National Jewish Medical and Research Center
in Denver, and a lead investigator in a national five-year study
into the causes and treatment of food allergies. Additionally,
50 to 80 percent of those children also will develop asthma.
Again, no one knows why.
A leading theory among researchers is that the rise in food
allergies may be caused by the so-called “hygiene hypothesis.”
First introduced in the late 1980s, the theory surfaced to
explain the increase in hay fever and asthma. The idea is that
our society has become “cleaner” and healthier through the
use of anti-bacterial cleaners and soaps in the home, as well
as the routine use of antibiotics and immunizations in medicine.
This, in turn, may be causing the immune systems in
some children to fail to differentiate between real threats and
harmless invaders, such as food. Some also believe that
because immune systems are no longer fighting real threats,
they overreact and shift to turn on the body’s own tissues.
Fleischer says the theory becomes more plausible as doctors
find that the number of food allergies seems to be on the rise in
developing nations, as they become more modernized. Another
finding is an increase in food allergies as people from developing
countries come to the United States. Fleischer had one
patient whose parents came to the United States from India.
Neither parent had a history of food allergies, but their young
son, born here, was diagnosed with severe food allergies.
Again, it is not clear whether the blame comes from the way the
food is processed in this country, how it is prepared or if it is
some entirely, and as yet undetermined, different cause. It also
is unknown why it strikes some children and not others.
Equally challenging is pinpointing exactly when these food
allergies develop. Are children born with them, or do they
develop in infancy and early childhood? Earlier in this decade,
there was speculation that food allergies might start in the
womb, so pregnant women were often cautioned against eating
peanuts in late pregnancy. But a recent study in Great Britain seems to have disproved that theory, says Fleischer.
Because so much remains unknown about the causes of
food allergies, misinformation flourishes. People sometimes
believe they have food allergies when they do not. One
recent study reported as much as 25 percent of Americans
now believe they have a food allergy. Food aversions are
often confused with allergies. And while the recent spotlight
on the problem and headlines of fatal consequences have
helped spread awareness, doctors like Fleischer now worry a
climate of panic and misunderstanding has been created.
Even within the medical community, there is disagreement
about diagnosis and treatment.
Fleischer says the dangers are twofold: Patients who do
not have severe food allergies are told they do and undergo
the drastic lifestyle change it takes to manage one, or, perhaps
more troubling, individuals with legitimate food allergies
are dismissed or not treated properly.
Ellen Sanders, a stay-at-home mother of two in Highlands
Ranch, knows well what can happen when a food allergy is
treated cavalierly. Her youngest son, Aaron, 8, has a lifethreatening
dairy allergy. Her older son, Christopher, 13, has
none. Before Aaron entered kindergarten, she sought treatment
from an alternative medical practice. They checked with
their pediatrician, who was not opposed. The plan was to do
a “food challenge,” whereby Aaron would be given a small
amount of string cheese and ice cream to help build up a tolerance
for dairy. They waited out the experiment for an hour
without any adverse reaction. They left ecstatic.
Once home, though, Aaron complained of a terrible stomachache.
Sanders thought his system was just unaccustomed to
the new foods. Within minutes his body was covered in hives.
She rushed him into the car to take him to the emergency room,
located 10 minutes away. They didn’t make it. As she sped
through her neighborhood, she kept talking to her son to keep
him alert, but by then he had stopped talking. The color in his
eyes had gone pale, and he was unresponsive. She pulled into a
fire station, where a firefighter treated him for anaphylaxis and
rushed him to the hospital. Sanders is haunted by what might
have happened. But she says it also shows how parents will try
anything in a desperate search for normalcy for their children.
Both Sanders and Clifford say theirs is an ongoing struggle
with the outside world. Many think they are neurotic parents.
Even other family members do not always fully believe the
severity of the situation because food allergies were largely
unheard of a generation ago. Sanders ultimately pulled her son
out of his school and now home schools him to avoid struggles
with teachers and other parents to make them understand the
dangers her son faces. Clifford has developed a business selling
plastic flashcards called “Beyond a Peanut,” a teaching tool for
schools, babysitters and other parents, to help them better
understand the hidden risks and behaviors that must be avoided.
What many don’t grasp, both mothers say, are the dangers
of cross-contamination, whereby a classmate who has eaten
a peanut or dairy product has the residue on his or her hands.
If they then touch an allergic child who in turn puts his hand
in his mouth or wipes his nose, a reaction can occur. Or not.
The parents say one of the most agonizing things in their
world is its unpredictability.
Ryan Clifford is now 5 and will soon enter kindergarten. A
bright boy with an impish smile and vibrant imagination, he has
invented a private fantasy where he loads his stuffed animals
into a rocket ship and leaves for a planet where there are no
peanuts. There, he says, he can be like all the other kids.
