Why have I never heard of this take on PA cause before??

[IowaMom]

http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/allergies/vaccines-and-the-peanut-allergy-epidemic/

I've heard of the "too many antibiotics" theory before, but this is the first I've come across PA being blamed on vaccines.

[YouKnowWho]

I often wonder about what happened to my non-FA child when he had his first vaccines at 2.  His whole system went bonkers including developing a long list of food allergies, going from a child who was rarely sick to one that developed lots of illnesses and other issues.  One by one they are disappearing and we are down to just peanut. 

And before anyone jumps on me for being anti-vax, please keep in mind that I have drug allergies, my husband has a long list of drug intolerances and DS2 has shown to have significant issues with meds.  My observations are personal and I am not advocating that no one should vaccinate their child.

[twinturbo]

I think the underlying premise is not vaccinations themselves but the use of immunologic adjuvants used to boost antigen response. Admittedly, on the surface this does look suspicious in the sense of modulating immune response however we have so many knowledgable professionals in the medical and pharm that are also FA parents I've suspected they have a working understanding on why adjuvants are an unlikely cause. For the sake of the rest of us I would like the allergy power players to clear it up publicly. Regionally so to speak I'm going to be keenly interested in CMdeux's perspective if she shares one.

[rebekahc]

From what I've heard in the past (and I haven't really done much research into it), the only purpose for IgE other than causing allergic reactions has to do with combating parasites.  So, at least to me, it seems first world lack of parasitic exposure could also be a likely "cause".  However, my personal opinion is that there is no one cause - it's probably a mixture of hygiene/vaccine/chemical exposure/modern med treatment and prevention/less discriminate breeding (I know that sounds horrible, but in the past "sickly" people didn't survive to reproduce) with a lot of who-the-heck-knows thrown in for good measure.

[CMdeux]

Yes-- to what Rebekah so succinctly said.

It probably isn't any one thing-- and studies which have looked at this as a correlative thing have not, generally, teased apart those who TEST positive from those who actually are clinically allergic... from those who were at one time clinically allergic...

so there are a number of VERY serious problems with this kind of thing:

1. It's always correlative, and frankly any putative mechanistic explanation is a real stretch, where one is plausible at all (and in a lot of cases, it's NOT),

2.  No effort is made to parse the study group with food challenges to determine which of the participants with IgE > 0.35 kU/L are actually, you know... clinically allergic.

So really, the most that can be said for this kind of thing is that there is a correlation¹ with {factor} and with positive SPT/RAST^{2, 3} to a particular allergen.  Often not even that, since some of these studies are actually based on even less, like self-reported⁴ allergy.


1 See causation fallacy.

2 see RAST =/= "allergy" and also

3 why an allergy fishing expedition is a bad idea, part one

and part II.


4 see self-reported allergy versus "real" allergy.
part I (this discusses food challenges and RAST levels)

part II,

and
why such surveys are distinctly unreliable.



Over the years, I've seen vaccines blamed for a whole host of things that make NO SENSE in light of immunology and biochemistry.  What is true is that vaccination saves lives.  A lot of lives.

[twinturbo]

I also think that vaccines have come under fire in the misunderstanding, or mischaracterization, that they are advertised as risk free when like any other medical intervention it has proven clinically significant benefit that outweighs the do-nothing risk. Example, MMR. There are some risks from the MMR but the wild virus is a much higher risk than the risks associated with the vaccine in light of the level of protection it can provide from the wild virus which is not necessarily absolute immunity but significantly less than lethal.

Also, in the back of many minds I think the idea of a vaccine link looms largely. In the interest of cohesive research goals it would probably be in our combined self-interest to put the word out as laid out by CMdeux. Sticky the post?

[lakeswimr]

I know a bunch of parents of FA children who didn't vax their kids.  DS showed signs of FAs his first day of life, well before he ever had any vaccines.  I know this doesn't prove anything but I don't think it can be just vaccines if it is them at all.  I have read links before that say vaccines cause peanut allergy and none were the least bit convincing. They claimed that vaccines contain peanut oil and this causes the allergy but actually recent studies seem to indicate that earlier exposure to top allergens may help prevent allergies, not cause them. 

The article claims that FAs are caused by 'leaky gut', something no food allergist will agree with.  I think the article is BS.  Wish it were that simple.