Why is the peanut allergy an epidemic that only seems to be found in Western cultures? Over four million people in the United States alone are affected by peanut allergies, while there are no reported cases in India, a country where peanuts are the primary ingredient in many baby food products. Where did this allergy come from, and does medicine play any kind of role in the phenomenon? After her own child had an anaphylactic reaction to peanut butter, historian Heather Fraser decided to discover the answers to these questions.
In The Peanut Allergy Epidemic , Fraser delves into the history of this allergy, trying to understand why it largely develops in children and studying its relationship with social, medical, political, and economic factors. In an international overview of the subject, she compares the epidemic in the United States to sixteen other geographical locations, finding that in addition to the United States, in countries such as Canada, the UK, Australia, and Sweden there is a one in fifty chance that a child, especially a male, will develop a peanut allergy. Fraser also highlights alternative medicines and explores issues of vaccine safety and other food allergies, making his book a must-read for every parent, teacher, and health professional.
The author is a historian (NOT a scientist) who gave birth to a child with a peanut allergy. Her attempt to discover the cause of the recent increase in food allergies led her to the anti vaccine movement and the classic blunder: confusing correlation and causation.
This book is packed full of dangerous misinformation which links vaccination programs with the rise in food allergies. Fraser blames immunizations, which reduced mortality rates and allowed children to live long enough to develop food allergies, for the allergies themselves. As the mother of a child with multiple food allergies myself, I was outraged by it.
By promoting this anti vaccine myth, Heather Fraser is responsible for reducing herd immunity and is actively endangering the population of children she seeks to protect. These are the children with food allergies who cannot receive all immunizations because they are anaphylactic to some of the cultures used to manufacture vaccines, such as egg or gelatin. (Not to mention babies who are too young to vaccinate or children who are immunocompromised and can't be vaccinated at all.)
This book deserves negative stars and the author should spend some time researching science based medicine and the resurgence of preventable childhood diseases.
Have you ever wondered WHY there are so many kids with peanut allergies these days? Heather Fraser did after her child had an anaphylactic reaction to peanut butter.
I’ve heard that a worried mom with a sick kid does better research than the FBI, and this book proves that point. Why Is That?
Ms. Fraser quickly points out that peanut allergy used to be a concern only for Western countries – why is that?
She indicates that there was a sudden rise in the U.K., U.S., Canada and Australia around 1990, and it worsened through the 2000′s – why is that?
The odds of a Western child developing a peanut allergy were 1 in 75 as of 2008 – why is that?
She also writes that the person most likely to develop a peanut allergy is a male born after about 1990 in said Western countries whose “ability to detoxify had been challenged by environmental factors” – why is that?
She finds it difficult to accept, as do I, that “hundreds of thousands of children had become allergic to this one food in the space of just twenty years by ingestion alone.”
You can’t blame it on genetics, as the overall rate would stay the same. Logically, there would have to be something in the environment (food, toxins, etc.) that’s triggering this rise.
An Epidemic of Children’s Chronic Health Conditions
For those of you who don’t know me, I am a Certified Holistic Health Counselor and Board Member of Epidemic Answers, a non-profit that provides information to parents of children with autism, ADHD, allergies, asthma and any other chronic neurological, behavioral, digestive and/or autoimmune conditions (the etiology is the same). We let parents know that recovery is possible.
I began my own investigations into this epidemic after my sons developed colic, projectile vomiting, cradle cap, ear infections, severe acid reflux, developmental delays, failure to thrive, asthma, Sensory Processing Disorder, hypotonia, eczema, mitochondrial dysfunction and food sensitivities (HINT: They’re all related.)
This is why I find Ms. Fraser’s book so fascinating: she is another mom that has learned to think for herself and do her own research and find out WHY this epidemic is happening. Standard Theories Not Sufficient
She writes about different theories and why they alone are not sufficient to describe this epidemic. These theories are:
The broken-skin hypothesis The ingestion hypothesis The toxin hypothesis The helminth (worm) hypothesis
Instead, Ms. Fraser proposes a new hypothesis: the dramatic increase in peanut allergies happened at the same time that the number of vaccines that children were given also increased dramatically.
And why not? She points out to us that “immunologist and Nobel laureate Charles Richet and pediatrician Clemens von Pirquet were able to show how the injection of vaccine proteins had caused the first allergy epidemic” over 100 years ago.
Apparently, we’ve forgotten our history, so we’re doomed to repeat it. So What’s Causing It?
With the skill of the historian that she is, Ms. Fraser points out several key facts that point to our vaccination policy as the cause of this alarming rise in peanut allergy, which is paralleled by alarming rises in autism, ADHD, asthma and other chronic health conditions.
The clues she details are:
“Medical literature illustrated that the only means by which immediate and mass allergy had ever been caused was by injection.” It used to be called “serum sickness” as early as the 1890′s.
Multi-dose vaccines came into being after President Reagan “signed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act from which emerged the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) in 1988. VICP was a ‘no-fault’ alternative to the tort system… (and) the pressures on vaccine makers eased.”
In 1985, 7 vaccines were given to children. By 2007, the number had grown to 37.
Beginning in 1993, multiple vaccinations were given in a single needle.
Vaccines are loaded with adjuvants, such as aluminum, that stimulate the body to mount an immune response. Adjuvants can cause allergic reactions and are the “immunologists’ dirty little secret’. Aluminum is a known IgE-stimulating adjuvant.
Peanut oil is used to make vaccine formulations. Not only is it impossible to remove all the proteins (proteins cause the allergic reaction) from the oil, but the quality of oil varies widely. “Refined peanut oil can create allergy whether consumed or ingested.”
Incidentally, Ms. Fraser points out that soy and egg white are used to make lecithin in vaccines. She didn’t explain in great detail, perhaps because it was out of the scope of this book, but this fact may be what’s behind the huge increase in soy and egg allergies, as well.
Before you dismiss this book out of hand and say it’s a bunch of hooey written by an anti-vaxer, I urge you to read it first, follow her logic and research the references she has prolifically listed. Then you can make up your own mind and think for yourself.
Having 2 kids with food allergies, like the author I also wonder what happened to increase the prevalence of food allergies today. The history of vaccinations & use of peanut oil was fascinating to me. I'm not sure I would make the leap that it's the sole cause of allergies, but it certainly pointed to a potential problem with the accelerated use of combo vaccines starting at 2 months, along with a goverment push to have all preschoolers vaccinated around 1990 instead of waiting for school age. I believe vaccinations are necessary, but perhaps more studies could be done on the timing, combinations and inert ingredients like nut oils. I also like the point the author made about how allergies are actually an economic boon for drug (epipens) & nut-free companies & how it's the parents who bear the cost burden. Until more people feel the pain, nothing will address it.
With the growing number of food intolerances and allergies, schools and day care centers respond by restricting the foods deemed responsible, such as peanut products and in some cases dairy products. Rarely is it considered that the injection of peanut oil, and dairy derivatives (lactose, bovine casein and lactalbumins) via vaccines, as probable causes. Some of the vaccines that use or contain the above ingredients include BCG, Hib, influenza, Meningococcal, MMR and Polio. When the above food ingredients are injected into an infant’s body bypassing natural censoring mechanisms is it any wonder that allergies and sensitivities are increasing???
Concern expressed by many over the years, (doctors and scientists included), that injecting common food ingredients into the human body such as foreign proteins and fatty oils as the true cause of hypersensitivity, a.k.a. intolerances and allergies, is where we should be directing our attention. Unfortunately, TPTB do not want to head down that path just as they do not want to head down that path when it comes to autism.
I've always been pro-vaccination. I've lost count of how many injections I've received in my life beginning with the childhood shots (penicilan, tetanus, DPT, polio, smallpox, along with all the required "booster shots") followed by shots courtesy of he US Army (yellow fever, plague, and a host of rare tropical diseases), through old age (shingles, pneumonia, influenza). I guess I'm just one of those lucky people who never got a severe reaction.
After reading Dr. Fraser's book, I feel like I survived a game of Russian roulette. Dr. Fraser presents a host of competing theories that explain why the rates of peanut and other food allergies have surged in recent decades. She gives all of them a thorough and fair examination. Each of them has been ruled out by contradictions except one. The remaining explanation, which seems most plausible based on all available evidence, links those allergies to early and excessive immunizations by injection.
Until I read this book, I considered the antivax people as belonging to a fringe group, not unlike believers in alien abductions. I had no idea how early babies are being injected and how many immunizations at a time are given. I thought to mysfelf, "Whoa! Lets slof it down!"
My 18mo old was recently diagnosed with a peanut allergy. No one in our families have this allergy, so I read this book to learn more and to hopefully figure out where this came from. This is a science book, so it was very dry. Like drier than some of my text books in college (I was a bio major). But it was interesting. And i have to give major kudos to the author for all her extended research. I admit i did lose interest toward the end and just skimmed the last two chapters. I found the history of peanuts and vaccines and allergies to be extremely interesting. However, I'm not 100% convinced that vaccines are completely to blame for peanut allergies. At least now I feel more educated about this and will have more questions to discuss when we meet with an allergist in a few months. Anyway, I recommend this for people who want to know more about the peanut allergy epidemic...just don't try to read it before bed. :)
When I was little, one of my favorite films was a little local thing called A More Perfect Union: America Becomes a Nation.
There is a brilliant(again #biased) little interchange between the man portraying John Adams and the British Ambassador, Lord Carmarthen. Adams is furious because Great Britain is "obstructing their shipping." I promise this connects.
Lord Carmarthen smirks and says, in a slight tenor voice: "Cui bono?" He then translates his Latin phrase: "Who benefits?"
And that is what I think it is worth asking in most circumstances (and certainly medical ones).
Who benefits from allergies? Who benefits from mandated, 100% covered, medical procedures? Who benefits from the law that you cannot sue any vaccine creating company if you experience the side-effects (so long as you have been given the list of potential side effects in advance)? Someone besides the patient must benefit in all these scenarios.
In all honesty, this question taints my opinions.
I'm not sure where I stand on the vaccine question.
I don't see much in her argument that vaccines cause allergies.
But she has a point about how vaccines, if administered in peanut oil (as they were in WWII), will probably not create a great reaction in people with a pre-existing peanut allergy.
I get woozy, horrifically sick when we study the black plague and smallpox in school units. I'd prefer to not have it. And would probably take any vaccine for that.
However, I've seen (with a close-ish view) the turmoil that seizures, one of the potential side-effects of vaccines, can cause in a life.
I've read about the horrors of the influenza epidemic. Keep the sanitation companies in business, baby.
But, I've seen people get the flu shot and, two months later, get the flu. Explainable, I know.
Vaccines probably don't cause autism (oh! you're probably seething with fury at me right now for that "probably").
But the CDC says that a side effect could be brain damage(check the site. Also check the site for information on how to report adverse side effects online. Right now it says "Page Not Found").
I've seen the side effects of polio and I don't want any child of mine to have them.
But I've met a person who is in a wheelchair because of a polio vaccination that didn't work the way it was supposed to.
I think that it is interesting that we are at a time when government and medical corporations can dictate what treatment a child must receive but I, as a potential parent, often can't dictate what is taught to my children. Could the government's interest in my (hypothetical) children be stronger than a parent's? Scary if it's true. Scary if it's not. No way to win, basically.
I think, in the long run, that I am for vaccines. But I am also for vaccine companies(basically all medical companies) that must be responsible and accountable for side effects. I am for vaccines that have no side effects, other than immunity. I am for accurate reporting of those side effects, for accurate reporting of the amount of people who get a shot and then get the sickness. I am for transparency (give me a list of those dratted ingredients and put those conspiracy theorists to shame) and accurate studies (the Canada and Japan studies in the book, folks!*). I don't think enough studies have been done on what age a child should be vaccinated. I am also for larger studies, done by independent entities with no bias, done over years and years. We should have better long-term data that covers more time.
* as much as some reviewers have commented that she lacks sources and accurate facts I would say that the bibliography and notes section puts those comments to shame. But yes, she is not a dr.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This is an account by a parent of a peanut-allergic child who believes that she has found an explanation for the rise in peanut allergy. She presents an interesting theory - that it has been caused by the use of peanut oil as an adjuvant in many vaccines and in injected antibiotics and vitamins. She has gone to a great deal of trouble to back up her theory with extensive footnotes - unfortunately in my kindle version of the book these were impossible to refer to without losing one's place and having to use the backwards arrow! I would like to believe that she has found the answer, but... this a theory that needs to be properly tested, and that is difficult to do when vaccinations are so omnipresent a part of modern life. I can't help but feel that this is a real weakness.
I also think that dragging autism into the picture is a red herring, and that the apparent increase in autism is more an increase in diagnoses than an increase in actual cases. Certainly the latest information I have seen indicates a fairly similar percentage of individuals affected throughout a very wide age range, including adults -it's just that many of the adults weren't diagnosed until they were adults, thus reflecting an improvement in recognition rather than an increase in incidence. The same may very well be true of ADHD.
I do need to declare an interest here - from the age of 10 I was severely allergic to Brazil nuts, walnuts, pecans and almonds. Fortunately for me, I was tested again when in my fifties and was found no longer to be allergic to nuts, though I am still allergic to many antibiotics. I am Canadian, was given DPT as an infant and was in the first contingent in Canada to be given the Salk polio vaccine. I was not vaccinated against small pox until I was 14 because I suffered from severe eczema when I was younger - a medical exemption which my younger siblings shared until I was old enough to be sent away to summer camp while they were vaccinated. As the author rightly states, giving the smallpox vaccination to an eczema sufferer can lead to a fatal reaction. The middle one of my younger sisters is severely autistic and also allergic to almonds, though she only developed this allergy as an adult. Neither she nor I have ever had an allergic reaction to peanuts. We were both born in the 1950s. Our great-aunt, born in the 1890s, was also allergic to tree nuts, but not peanuts. This is, of course, anecdotal evidence, but I don't think that vaccination will have been the cause of any of our allergies nor of my sister's autism - we all predate most of the vaccinations the author feels have caused the increase in peanut allergy by many decades!
Allergies along with Autism, ADHD and Asthma (the four A's) have exploded over the past couple of decades. This books explain why. If you think Big Government, Big Pharma and Big Medicine have the best interests of children at heart then this book will disabuse you of that notion. I borrowed this book from the Internet Archive, a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. I had to wait a couple of days until it became available but it was well worth the wait. Of course, you can purchase it if you want from Amazon as well.
THis is one of the most informative, fact based, quick paced, amazing books on historical medicine of the last 200 years that I have ever read. I have read many books on epidemics, autoimmune disorders, history of different communicable and non-communicable diseases, vaccine science, the immune system, and studied medical sociology and this is one of the best books there is. It is not that long either, was a breeze to get through.
An indepth look at the history and science of food allergies and an analytical approach to determining the cause thereof. Enlightening to say the least! Repetitive in parts, and although the author works very hard to be thorough, some important elements of the equation are missing in the discussion.
Fast paced and Fact Based. I couldn't put it down. I buy copies of it just to give away to family members, friends, strangers, and leave at doctors offices. And it is not just for people with peanut allergic kids, it is for everyone. Everyone should read this book. Her sources are airtight. She is a historians and her research is meticulous and it shows.
Probably one of the best Vaccine books I have read. The title is deceiving making you think it's all about peanut allergy which it is but the author goes through painstaking detail of how allergies came about. Highly recommend for anyone who is thinking to choose whether or not to vaccinate.
I like that this is current information explained clearly. Recommended reading for parents-t0-be, parents of peanut allergy children, DOCTORS, and adults with peanut allergies.
Reading this was a rather random act - I have been mildly curious as to why this allergy suddenly arose, seemingly out of nowhere, over the course of my lifetime.
I thought this was a good history of the research. I won't try to rather it, however, because I let a lot fly over my head - too many numbers!
This is tough to read for many reasons but I now realize that my peanut allergy was caused by vaccines! I also had too much penicillin for my many bouts with bronchitis/pneumonia. It was very shocking as I always relied on penicillin. Doctors are over vaccinating us and we need to back off to prevent poor health, autism and death from food allergies but mainly peanut.
I recommend that everyone read this book so that you can protect yourself and your children.
The truth is slowly coming out on what is causing the peanut allergy epidemic. When you put peanut oil into vaccines and inject them into children, what do you expect? Well researched.