Cleveland Clinic – Staff Writer
“For many of us, a peanut is merely something that is good to eat. But for someone with a food allergy, a peanut – or eggs, soy, milk or wheat – can be a terrifying and even a potentially lethal threat. Food allergy is an abnormal response to a food that is triggered by the body’s immune system. The immune system responds to a harmless food as if it were a threat. From 4 percent to 6 percent of children in the United States have a food allergy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. When your child has a food allergy, you might feel concern about sending your child to school. You wonder who will make sure to keep your child safe from these threats to his or her health. The best strategy? Enlist others and form a partnership with the people at your child’s school, says pediatric food allergist Sandra Hong, MD, of Cleveland Clinic Children’s.”(more)