The Man-Made Peanut Allergy Epidemic, A revealing history of a medical mystery

Fraser Horne ^ | Heather Fraser

[refreshed]

Oh, I am quite familiar with the phrase. Thank you for your comments.

[Claud]

Of course the chemicals we live with are another potential explanation. The job, though, of the medical research community is to do wide-ranging double-blind studies and find out.

From everything I’ve seen, the anti-vaccine people are the ones saying this is a hypothesis that should be studied, while some of the folks on the other side are the ones saying that further research on the link would be “counterproductive.” There goes the scientific method out the window.

Do the study. If there’s no link, fine, we’ll find that out.

[bvw]

Wow, your first sentence sounded like you knew something or other. But you blew it off with the second.

Big molecules are not small molecules. Let me ask you: Just how close, package-size wise, is the Hib B protein to peanut protein?

How do the two proteins mesh up in filter chromatography?

[bvw]

One which has been put forth by serious researchers, is that many children in developed countries are growing up in unnaturally sterile environments, with homes constantly being cleaned, Lysol’d, vacuumed with vacuum cleaners equipped with HEPA filters, spending little time outside interacting with bugs and bird poop, and thus not getting a normal range and quantity of exposures to properly develop their immune systems (this is consistent with what’s been demonstrated with more ordinary allergies, that children growing up on farms are far less likely to be allergic to things like dogs/cats/pollen).

Sounds like homeopathy! And not exactly hard science, is what you describe.

[heartwood]

Dude the whole protein doesn’t pack and interact - it’s the little protrusions and pockets that interact, very small parts of the whole.

Small molecule example was just to make things very simple - anyone can add to 28.

Oxytocin and vasopressin - closely related - close in size and weight, fairly similar in shape - different effects in the body.

[bvw]

Dude that simple molecule mention was still a stupid example, and you still are drifting with your last example. Dude.

Here’s a few questions, based on your last example. Let’s see if it drifts or is anchored, eh? What systems in the body are effected by, or process oxytocin and vasopressin similarly? Is there any correlation between allergies to vasospressin and adverse reactions to oxytocin, or vice-versa?

[bvw]

That is to say, may seem to me to be overly focused on what you hold to be the singular main action of these complex molecules — the active site (or sites) — yet the body have many processes that deal with each molecule, and adverse reactions can occur at any of those.

Yet something as coarse a characteristic as weight or size can alone be the defining or triggering aspect of some systemic process or pathology in the body. Say for example — the size of LDL, very much a part of how bad it is in clogging arteries.

[grey_whiskers]

it seemed to escape notice that the molecular weights of proteins in the Hib B were almost identical to those in peanut.

Hmmm, so not only are vaccines giving us peanut allergies, but peanuts themselves are now contagious, eh? /sarc>

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

I do believe that you and heartwood are talking past each other.

(Dons asbestos suit).

Cheers!

[bmwcyle]

ping

[ichabod1]

Maybe if they just let the peanut allergy chuldren die, it will remove the weakness from the herd. That’s probably what hteyll do in China.

[ichabod1]

One which has been put forth by serious researchers, is that many children in developed countries are growing up in unnaturally sterile environments, with homes constantly being cleaned, Lysol’d, vacuumed with vacuum cleaners equipped with HEPA filters, spending little time outside interacting with bugs and bird poop, and thus not getting a normal range and quantity of exposures to properly develop their immune systems (this is consistent with what’s been demonstrated with more ordinary allergies, that children growing up on farms are far less likely to be allergic to things like dogs/cats/pollen).

Yeah, I've heard this one. Seems pretty thin to me. I'd like to see the data from the randomized controlled trials. Sounds a lot like an establishment refusing to critically examine the vaccination industry.

Why do you suppose no one believes the government? Because they're full of shit.

[ichabod1]

Then what changed in 1998? Your argument is weak and unsupported. No latin there.

[ichabod1]

BEcause the benefit of the vaccines probably do outweigh the benefits in general, but it sucks to get the short straw and have your child turn up autistic at age 3 after being an extremely bright child up to that point, then reversing.

[Bob]

“...and again in 2008 in the wake of a leaked report that the mercury-based vaccine preservative Thimerosol, was contributing to the massive rise in childhood autism.”

This is not true. A lie repeated a bunch of times is still a lie.

If Thimerosol were, in fact, the cause of the "massive rise in childhood autism", its elimination many years ago should have stopped that rise. As far as I've been able to read, it didn't.

[bvw]

It’s interesting that I think I’m smarter than I am because I just dropped a little money into a biotech working in a very similar area. Truth is, I’m stupider every day.

[aruanan]

This epidemic tipped into critical mass around 1998 when the first flood of allergic children entered kindergarten sending a shock through education systems. Prevalence of the allergy increases with parental income, education and accessible health care. It does not increase with consumption. In developing countries where peanut consumption is high, the allergy is virtually unknown. In the west, children who have never eaten a peanut experience reactions on initial exposure to the food.

First, the "epidemic tipped into a critical mass around 1998" is probably more of a journalistic artifact than an epidemiological event. The most important part of the above excerpt is that the prevalence increases with higher standards of living which also happen to have lower levels of exposure to all sorts of antigens than would have been characteristic of the childhood of the parents of these children. Kids that have had a large load and wide range of exposures to lots of different substances during childhood are much less likely to develop allergies or asthma.

Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but it's also a lot closer to allergies.

[Mears]

Nonsense!

[ichabod1]

Just show me the RCTs and the peer reviewed studies on that and I’ll be happy to buy it. But I’m betting kids roll around in the dirt among the relatively wealthy just like we did when I was a kid, all concerns about the coddling of children today aside.

[r9etb]

. Richet proved that anaphylaxis is an inevitable side effect of vaccination.

Ah, yes... and the rest of this piece of crap is claiming that it's the only cause of anaphylaxic responses.

More anti-vaccine bullshit.