For others, the enemy could be wheat, or egg, or dairy products. Or any other common food that turns up in lunchboxes or at birthday parties.
Food allergies have been called a "sleeping enemy...ready to threaten the lives of nearly 8 out of every 100 children in America every minute of every day." That's about two kids in every single classroom across the nation. Nearly 40 percent of these children have already experienced a severe, potentially fatal reaction to a food.
But although there is currently no cure for food allergies, one lies within reach. Through Congressional funding specifically for food allergy research, oral immunotherapy is being explored as a way to desensitize someone to a particular allergy. This funding comes through both the Department of Defense and the National Institutes for Health, and is appropriated each fiscal year by Congress.
Two of Washington's legislators have recently written letters to Congressman Norm Dicks - who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense - urging his support for increased funding for food allergy research. You can read the letter from House Majority Whip Kevin Van De Wege here. When he's not busy with his legislative duties, Rep. Van De Wege is a professional firefighter and EMT who throughout his career has responded to plenty of emergency calls dealing with anaphylactic shock from food allergies.
Rep. Laurie Jinkins also wrote a letter to Congressman Dicks. She is vice chair of the House Health Care & Wellness committee, and Deputy Director of the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department. Food allergies, she notes, are a growing problem not only in our classrooms, but for our military as well.
