Well, seeing is believing. I honestly think that even gurus don't see these patients all that often. DD is, by our allergist's admission, one of the two lowest-threshold kids he's ever seen-- and he trained at Sinai.
So she's not only in the 1%, but probably more like the 0,1% or maybe even 0,01%.
The reason why those kids seem like they might be more common if you hang around HERE is probably two-fold:
1. Most people with higher thresholds don't stick around here even if they initially come looking-- because once they figure out HOW to live life with a FA, they adjust and don't struggle all that much. KWIM?
2. It's the internet-- the people who need this place most (lowest threshold, severe reactions, other extenuating circumstances)-- tend to congregate here.
If one were to hang out at KWA, it'd be just as easy to imagine that a eosinophilic disorders are WAY more common than they actually are.
People who are actually capable of reacting to the amounts of material which are present in the ambient air in spaces with normal methods of aerosolization (that is, mechanical means other than industrial mixing of fine powders, or thermal aerosolization, both of which put a LOT of protein into the air) are VERY RARE.
But it's not psychosomatic. The mental gymnastics that I have to do in order to make that 'fit' what we've seen firsthand with our DD is an order of magnitude greater than accepting that she reacts to ultratrace quantities that have been aerosolized.
Occam's Razor.
I do not subscribe to the hypothesis that she can react to the "smell" of peanut butter. Not the same thing at all. Scent molecules tend to be volatile organic compounds-- often aromatic ring structures. PROTEINS, on the other hand, are not like that chemically at all.
