'The difference in six years is night and day. Kids diagnosed in infancy we can now actually cure'

“SOMEONE cries in every clinic,” says Professor Adam Fox as we tour the UK’s first specialist hospital dedicated to delivering groundbreaking food allergy treatments.

- BY HANNA GEISSLER Health Editor

“The difference is that it used to be crying in despair and now, broadly, it’s crying with happiness.”

Around three million people live with food allergies in the UK. Until recently, treatment amounted to telling them what they were sensitive to and advising them to avoid it.

Now therapies are available that can free children and their families from the constant fear of life-threatening reactions.

In February 2023, 13-year-old Hannah Jacobs died from a fatal anaphylactic reaction after taking a sip of a Costa Coffee hot chocolate mistakenly made with cow’s milk.

Oral immunotherapy involves giving a small, increasing dose of an allergen under medical supervision to build tolerance. If children start young, they can go from being at risk of dying from a trace of hazelnut, mustard, egg or another trigger, to tolerating a small amount.

This can be enough to unlock freedoms for terrified parents or allow a teen to go on holiday with their friends. One eight-year-old boy went to China to meet his grandparents for the first time after being treated for a peanut allergy at the clinic.

Evolved

Prof Fox says: “The difference between now and six years ago is night and day. Most kids diagnosed in infancy, we can actually cure.”

He adds: “Even being OK with a couple of peanuts means you can stop worrying that someone has used the wrong knife or not scrubbed the pan properly, because you're not going to react to small exposures, which are what cause the overwhelming majority of accidents.”