Misdiagnosed Food Allergies

"Many children are wrongfully diagnosed with food allergies because of inaccurate tests," charges Ellen Ruppell Shell in her article "An Overreaction to Food Allergies," in Scientific American (November 2015).  Excerpts from this article:

"Common skin-prick tests... produce signs of irritation 50 to 60 percent of the time, even when the person is not actually allergic....  And you end up with a lot of people scared to eat foods that would do them no harm....  A team of researchers found that 112 of 126 children who were diagnosed with multiple food allergies tolerated at least one of the foods that they were cautioned might kill them....

"Food allergies are real and can be deadly, but mistakenly slapping an allergy label on a patient can be a big problem....  It does not solve the person's troubles....  There is a mental health price as well: children who believe they have a food allergy tend to report higher levels of stress and anxiety, as do their parents.  Every sleepover, picnic, and airplane ride comes fraught with worry that one's child is just one peanut away from an emergency room visit or worse."

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