FDA, BPA, Childhood Food Allergy in the United States

[Guest guest]

Opinion: FDA?s decision on BPA exposes Catch 22. <http://bit.ly/MmAkYg>

By Frederick vom Saal, Hunt

Environmental Health News 8 June 2012

The FDA?s decision to reject a petition to ban bisphenol A in food

packaging exposes a serious Catch 22 in the federal mindset.

Its repeated rejection of virtually all research from independent,

university laboratories is disturbing, and it raises questions about

whether the agency genuinely aims to protect the health of Americans.

The FDA has relied instead on a small number of studies funded by

industries that manufacture BPA.

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City kids more likely to have food allergies, study says.

<http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-food-allergies-0608-20120608,0,7674\

517.story>

Children in urban areas have a higher incidence of food allergies than

those in rural America, according to a new study believed to be the

first to assess allergic reactions in kids based on geography.

One of the urban centers tracked in the research is Cook County, where

9.8 percent of children have food allergies compared with 6.2 percent in

more bucolic ZIP codes.

" That's a big discrepancy, " said Dr. Ruchi Gupta, an assistant professor

of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and

a lead author of the study. " What we've found for the first time is that

population density and environment have an impact. "

The study, which followed almost 38,500 children under age 18, will be

published in the July issue of Clinical Pediatrics. The researchers

surveyed a representative sample of U.S. households with children about

food allergies and mapped them based on their ZIP codes in every state.

Other key findings include: Peanut allergies are twice as common in

urban centers as rural communities, 2.8 percent versus 1.3 percent.

Shellfish sensitivity, too, is more prevalent in urban areas at 2.4

percent versus .08 in the country....

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open access:

* Ruchi S. Gupta,

* E. Springston,

* Bridget ,

* Manoj R. Warrier,

* Pongracic,

* and Jane L. Holl

Geographic Variability of Childhood Food Allergy in the United States

CLIN PEDIATR 0009922812448526, first published on May 17, 2012 as

doi:10.1177/0009922812448526

* Abstract

<http://cpj.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/05/14/0009922812448526.abstract>

* Full Text (PDF)

<http://cpj.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/05/14/0009922812448526.full.pdf+html>