(via Blue’s News)
This article at the BBC indicates that scientists believe we could well eliminate food allergies in the next 10 years.
Experts at the BA Festival of Science, in Norwich, heard that vaccines could be created against the molecules which trigger allergies.
The scientist leading the research – Dr Ronald van Ree, from Amsterdam University – said a vaccine with no side effects was in sight.
. . .
Speaking about the research, Dr van Ree told festival delegates: “Taken together, these new developments provide good opportunities to develop strategies for the treatment of food allergies, both preventive and curative.”
He said it was now possible to produce altered versions of food allergy molecules in the laboratory.
“Importantly, this allows scientists to develop hypo-allergenic variants of these molecules for application in safer immunotherapy that will induce little or no side effects,” the scientist told the meeting at the University of East Anglia.
“Effective treatment will end the fear that food-allergic patients have for unwanted exposure to food allergens.”
Some of you already know me as a bit of a skeptic. I’ll continue that tradition here. In 5-6 years, we’ll get an update on this that we’ve moved slower than initially expected, and that now (i.e., the year 2011 or so), we really are just 10 years away from eliminating food allergies. And this time, we really mean it. At least, until 5-6 years later when scientists confirm that things are progressing slower than anticipated, but really, it will only be 10 more years, at most, before food allergies are wiped out.
I hope I’m wrong – I’d love to see food allergies eliminated. But the body is damn tricky in how it works. And as Jurassic Park taught us, any time you try to alter nature, nature finds a way around your changes (or something like that).
[tags]End of food allergies, Sciencists predict 10 years to end food allergies[/tags]