At 11:00 AM 6/21/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Up to 5 percent of children have food allergies.
        Hm, I wonder if this stat is OLD or if I just know more than my
share of kid with allergies? :)

>Most children outgrow their allergy, although an allergy to peanuts
>and tree nuts is considered life-long.
        As a number of people who have had childhood allergies on this list
and on the celiac's list have already expressed from their own personal
experience this is NOT necissarily true.  This is what the health care
industry believes. There is a period in most kids lives where the symptoms
decrease for a WHILE....but that is all that happens.  Internally the immune
system IS still reacting and the person IS still suffering from their
allergic response.  If continued exposure continues through this "resting"
stage of outward symptoms, the allergy often becomes life
threatening...causing an anaphylaxis type reaction some time in the future.
That was my own personal experience with this and several of the people in
my family experience too.  My advice: don't count on it!  Kids may have
diminishing symptoms when they avoid offending foods but later on in life
they will pay for it with WORSE reactions.  NOT WORTH IT!  (Wish I had known
and hope no one else has to learn this truth the hard way).