Bone marrow transplants to cure food allergies?

Let me get this out of the way from the get-go, bone marrow transplants (BMTs) to cure food allergies are not really a question up for debate - this is NOT a good treatment option for your typical food allergic individual. There I've said it - the disappointing part. More on WHY I say this further in the post where I will discuss exactly what a BMT is. Let's just say the potential life-threatening risks of a BMT (among a few other factors, such as cost) far outweigh the potential benefits of a food allergy cure - even for those of us dealing with the risk of life-threatening anaphylaxis.

So where did this business of BMTs curing food allergies even come from? This week, clinicians presented a case-study at the annual #ACAAI (American College of Asthma Allergy and Immunology) scientific meeting, that a 10-year-old boy with both leukemia and a life-threatening peanut allergy was likely cured of his peanut allergy following a BMT to treat his leukemia (Link to press coverage of the case study) [1]. First off, I cannot even imagine dealing with a life-threatening food allergy and then discovering cancer on top it. Needless to say, this family has endured a lot. The really good news is that as far as I can read in the scientific abstract from the meeting, the boy is cancer-free and peanut-allergy free! Below I am giving you the details that are given in the abstract, which inquiring minds may want to know (Meeting abstracts are published in the 2013 November Supplement to the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology).

 

Food Allergy Bloggers Conference Wrap-up: Genius Loves Company

It has been over 4 days since I returned from warm, sunny Las Vegas and the first ever Food Allergy Bloggers Conference, belovedly going by #FABlogCon on Twitter.  Last Friday, I assumed that I would publish a wrap-up post on the blog by Wednesday.  Boy was I wrong!  I've been grappling for days now, how to put this event into the words that even begins to give it the justice it deserves.

Exciting times - guest post and food allergy bloggers conference!

So much exciting news to share:

Yesterday, a piece that I authored was published on the ever so resourceful, insightful, and evidence-based website, Asthma Allergies Children with editor in chief, Henry Ehrlich.  I am honored and humbled to be included among the distinguished individuals in the allergy community contributing to this website.  Go check it out!  It just may make you think twice about the long arduous process of science and what "negative" results in science mean.  I also want to thank Dr. Xiu-Min Li, a highly talented, passionate, and extremely caring food allergy scientist/clinician for taking the time to make this piece possible!

In other news: What happens in Vegas, won't stay in Vegas!



I will be attending the first ever Food Allergy Blogger Conference in Las Vegas (Nov. 2 - Nov. 4)!  This was a labor of love by two food allergy bloggers themselves, Jenny at Multiple Food Allergy Help and Homa at Oh Mah Deeness.  The list of speakers and attendees is extraordinary, and I wish that everyone out there could be in attendance.  Since this isn't the case, why not use modern technology to "be there."  I will be using Twitter (along with many other bloggers!) to live tweet conference details.  Selena at Amazing and Atopic wrote a fabulous, visual post explaining how you can get updates from all the bloggers tweeting the conference.  In addition, it contains all of those tweets embedded in a post that is live updating on her blog.  If you aren't a fan of twitter, you can check out her blog throughout the conference and see the live tweets!

If you are not familiar with Twitter but would consider getting an account, it involves all those #(insert favorite word/phrase here) pervading our culture (thank you Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon).  In this case, #FABlogCon will be used!  You can search for #FABlogCon or click on it at any time, and you will see all tweets from anyone using this "hashtag" even if you do not follow them on Twitter!  I signed up for Twitter last winter (against every fiber of my being) because of live tweets from the #AAAAI conference - @FdAllergySleuth.  It really was cool to see all the live tweets of cutting edge scientific findings coming from conference attendees.  I was finally convinced that , yes, Twitter does have a purpose after all! 

Oh and last, but not least - a huge shout out to my family and amazing husband/partner in crime for making this possible.  Traveling or leaving family behind while dealing with life-threatening food allergies (and two small children!) can be stressful to say the least. 

See you all soon - whether you are in Vegas or on Twitter!

 

Halloween - 2013 Edition

Halloween is filled with all kinds of emotions when dealing with life-threatening food allergies!

I'm so proud of myself.  Halloween is still 2 weeks away and safe allergy friendly treats are ordered, set to be delivered at our doorstep any day now.  In years past, it usually escaped my mind until the week before (too late to order), resulting in a mad dash to multiple stores to purchase whatever safe treats or toys we could find.  For our multiple food allergic child, this typically means trading unsafe treats for safe chocolate chips or small toys such as stickers, erasers, and pencils.  (Note - corn and soy are really big problems for us. I have yet to find standard nut-free/peanut-free brands that are also free of corn and soy, among others).  For some reason, I am afraid that he will be less than thrilled about safe chocolate chips yet again.  He is gaining awareness of his allergy predicament, which is a double-edged sword.  Good in that he is beginning to advocate for himself.  Bad in that he's socially and emotionally older, meaning he's becoming fully aware that he is "different" when all he really wants to do is "fit in."  Chocolate chips just aren't going to cut it anymore when all of his friends are getting those delicious looking, nose-pleasing aromas of chocolate and sugar all wrapped up in pretty colored packages.

The Sanctity of Science

As the years go by, I grow more and more convinced that the scientific process is a perfect process for its intended purpose - to test ideas in order to explain how natural phenomena work in the realm of space and time.  Natural phenomena can range from at one end - the known universe - to at the other end - the seemingly infinitesimally small Higg's boson (aka - God particle).  At either of those extreme ends of natural phenomena, questions of science often meet the philosophical - e.g. was there a BEFORE the big bang? Most of us, however, reside somewhere in the middle of this spectrum.  Even in the in between, there is still so much we have to learn - about ourselves, about our world.  I believe the wonder, awe, and beauty of the unknown will always be a part of our existence because it is central to being human to question, wonder, and desire to know.  I have yet to meet a person without these traits. I have to agree with a recent incredibly thought-provoking interview of Richard Dawkins on the Daily Show that this curiosity just may lead to humanity's demise (Really, watch it.  It's fascinating).  Yes, I agree that how certain humans will choose to use our accumulated knowledge will likely destroy us long before our use of the scientific process has a fighting chance of coming anywhere near understanding all there is to understand.  Like an addiction to a bad drug, we can't stop our craving for knowledge.  And I know we never will; I hope we never will.  We need solutions to humanity's problems like food allergies, and understanding the problems should go a long way in helping us fix the problems.

Whew, that was deep!  I hope you don't mind my random musings (the best thing about a personal blog, in my opinion!)  But, back to what I really wanted to discuss - the scientific process in all its perfect glory.  The process is perfect.  Humans are not.  Therefore, how humans use this process is inherently imperfect.  The steps - observation, question, hypothesis, test the hypothesis (experiment), analyze the data, conclude - gets repeated over and over and over... it's like an upward spiral staircase continuously climbing higher in our knowledge.  Any wrong ideas (hypotheses) will eventually be uncovered through experimentation.  This is the beauty of the scientific process - it self corrects our wrong ideas.