Dive Summary:
- Food allergies reported in U.S. children are up 50% from the late '90s, with a CDC survey estimating that 1 in 20 children suffer from them.
- Experts aren't sure of the reason for the increase, though suggestions include that children are growing up exposed to so many antibiotics and in houses so clean that they're left more sensitive to allergy triggers, or that parents are more likely to refer to rashes and reactions as allergies.
- Food allergies are among the most feared and USA Today notes that the report isn't precise, as its numbers come from annual surveys of thousands of adults interviewed in person from 1997-1999 and 2009-2011, and researchers didn't check medical records or ask if a doctor had made a diagnosis.
From the article:
... Already familiar with the trend in food allergies are school nurses, who have grown busier with allergy-related duties, like banishing peanuts at school parties or stocking emergency allergy medicine.
Sally Schoessler started as school nurse in 1992 in New York state, and didn't encounter a child with a food allergy for a few years. But by the time she left school nursing in 2005, "there were children in the majority of classrooms" with the disorder, said Schoessler, who now works at the National Association of School Nurses in Silver Spring, Md. ...
