If there is a running tally of how often common sense has prevailed over “the experts,” we can add another win for common sense. Also, vindication for those of us who believed it was completely natural to give our children peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as early as age two. As a result of a landmark study a decade ago, an estimated 60,000 children have avoided developing peanut allergies since then.
Dr. David Hill, an allergist and researcher at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the author of a study published Monday in the medical journal Pediatrics, has been following records from dozens of pediatric practices to track diagnoses of food allergies in young children before, during, and after the guidelines were issued. He concluded that this found a remarkable result: “I can actually come to you today and say there are [fewer] kids with food allergy today than there would have been if we hadn’t implemented this public health effort.”
For years, parents were warned not to feed their kids peanuts until they were older, out of an abundance of caution, because peanut allergies can be dangerous. Now, peanut allergies are down 43% since “experts” reversed that guidance. The researchers found that peanut allergies in children ages zero to three declined by more than 27% after guidance for high-risk kids was first issued in 2015 and by more than 40% after the recommendations were expanded in 2017. We’re certainly not downplaying the fact that a peanut allergy can be dangerous and that it does exist, but it also doesn’t have to be common.
One of the main culprits for the surge in severe lifelong peanut allergies in children is the American Academy of Pediatrics. From 2000 to 2008, the Academy recommended against early exposure of peanuts to infants and toddlers. For decades, as food allergy rates climbed, experts advised that parents avoid giving their children common allergens when, in fact, the opposite would cut their chances of developing a peanut allergy by over 80%. Later analysis showed that the protection persisted in about 70% of kids into adolescence. While food allergies can be dangerous, 80% of people never outgrow them.
CBS News and others are labeling this as a “new method” and a “new study,” but this study is a decade old. The American Academy of Pediatrics continued to advise against early exposure for nearly 20 years, despite the 2015 study, and even though, for decades, Israeli children had been eating peanuts from a young age and had a low incidence of peanut allergy. Why? Out of “an abundance of caution.” Sounds eerily familiar.
So, what took the experts so long to get on board? Surveys found that only about 29% of pediatricians and 65% of allergists reported following the expanded guidance issued in 2017. CBS News expounds, “Confusion and uncertainty about the best way to introduce peanuts early in life led to the lag, according to a commentary that accompanied the study. Early on, medical experts and parents alike questioned whether the practice could be adopted outside of tightly controlled clinical settings.”
The 33 million people with food allergies in the U.S. are just grateful to see that something is having a measurable impact and is being adopted more widely. Sung Poblete, chief executive of the nonprofit group Food Allergy Research & Education, spoke for all of them when she said, “This research reinforces what we already know and underscores a meaningful opportunity to reduce the incidence and prevalence of peanut allergy nationwide.”
This peanut allergy study result also lends credence to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s cause: “Question the experts.” It’s almost as if he’s on to something with this whole idea that “the medical juggernaut may not have your best interest in mind.” It’s hard to trust the science when the “science” keeps changing to cover up the medical community’s mistakes — or, worse, lies.
There was a time when peanut allergies were much more rare. You know, that time when “experts” weren’t running everyone’s lives and parents just fed their kids normal food.
