|
 New
Drug Can Limit Potentially Fatal Peanut Allergies
Auburn,
March 21, 2003 ---
Help may soon be available for the hundreds of thousands of
Americans who live in constant fear of a potentially deadly exposure
to a common snack food — peanuts.
Using an
experimental drug once a month, researchers have found that they can
lessen their allergic reaction to peanuts.
For a small number
of people, exposure to even trace amounts of peanuts can produce
violent allergic reactions, even death among some people. An
estimated 1.5 million Americans are allergic to peanuts, and between
50 and 100 die each year from exposure.
Common physical
reactions associated with these allergic reactions include abdominal
pain, vomiting, hives, breathing problems and tightness in the
throat. Some reactions are so severe that they can cause drops in
blood pressure, inability to breathe and, in some cases, death.
Businesses and
schools throughout the country already take this threat very
seriously, especially in cases where they have employees or students
who suffer from this condition.
“As a registered
dietitian, I once advised an early childhood development center that
had a strict rule against bringing in any peanut products for fear
it would cause one of their students to undergo a violent reaction,”
says Dr. Jean Weese, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System food
scientist. “They were concerned that even trace amounts of these
peanuts would become airborne and eventually be ingested by him.”
That is why
researchers are so exited about the experimental drug, known as
TNX-901. In a study involving 84 people, ages 12 to 60, the drug
was shown to change sensitivity so that instead of reacting to only
a half peanut, allergy sufferers could consume an average of nine
whole peanuts before reactions occurred. One-fourth of the
subjects with the highest dosages avoided reactions even after
consuming 24 peanuts.
Still, the future of
TNX-901 is uncertain. Researchers hope to conduct a larger study
that would include children as young as 2 or 3 and then seek
marketing approval. However, this will depend on whether the three
companies involved in the development of the drug will stick with it
or opt to go with a similar drug known as Xolair.
Xolair, which is
considered an effective peanut allergy drug, already has been tried
with 4,000 asthma sufferers, though not with peanut allergy
sufferers. Some doctors say that as soon as it is available — which
may be as early as July by some accounts — they will prescribe it as
a severe allergy drug.
Whether one or both
of the drugs become commercially available, peanut sufferers likely
will pay an enormously high price — as much as $10,000 dollars a
year by some estimates.
Part of the problem
associated with peanuts stem from its widespread use in the Western
diet, Weese says. Peanuts, tasty, nutritious and highly versatile
from the standpoint of food processing, are used in a wide variety
of foods, most notably in cookies and candies.
However, because of
their routine use, manufacturers sometimes fail to include them in
food labeling. Failure to include all ingredients on a food label
is an all-too-common practice, and for peanut allergy sufferers, the
results are often catastrophic.
“Up to about 75
percent of food recalls occur after industries have failed to close
off a line that dumps some food ingredient, such as peanuts, into a
product that was not supposed to include them,” Weese says.
“Food labels are
supposed to carry all ingredients according to their level of
predominance within the product,” she adds, “but this becomes highly
problematic when ingredients end up in the wrong products.”
That is why the
lives of most peanut allergy sufferers are strewn with risks.
“For many of these
people, a mistake in labeling could mean death,” Weese says. “That
is why they simply can’t rely on food labeling to protect themselves
against exposure.”
One college student,
for example, died after eating cookies that contained small amounts
of peanuts. As it turned out, the manufacturer of the product had
decided to add some unused peanut batter associated
with another cookie
product. However, the label on the product never was changed to
reflect this fact.
(Source:
Dr. Jean Weese, Extension Food
Scientist and Auburn University Professor of Nutrition and Foods,
334-844-3269.)
Article in MS Word
Article in Text
|
