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From our friend Don Kasarda at the USDA:

>I think the following abstract may be of interest to the celiac group.  If
>we follow our only known benchmark of 100 mg gliadin per day being clearly
>harmful, and our assumption that 10 mg per day may be OK, even the one
>sample of 30 examined that had more than 2.8 mg of gliadin per 100 g had
>only 38 mg of gliadin.  We can't really say if that one sample is harmful if
>eaten regularly over a long time--it might be, it might not be.  Anyway, to
>me it seems the odds of 30:1 that an oat batch has a very low level of
>gliadin it are not too bad.  Obviously, a personal choice on the part of
>celiac patients will be necessary when it comes to deciding whether or not
>to risk eating oats.
>
>Don
>
>
>TI- Detection of wheat contamination in oats by polymerase chain reaction
>    (PCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)|
>AU- Koeppel E; Stadler M; Luethy J; Huebner P|
>CS- Lab. Food Chem., Dep. Chem. Biochem., Univ. Berne, Freiestrasse 3,
>    CH-3012 Berne, Switzerland|
>SO- Zeitschrift fuer Lebensmittel-Untersuchung und -Forschung A,     206
>    (6). 1998.  399-403.|
>SN- 1431-4630|
>LA- ENGLISH|
>PR- Biological Abstracts Vol. 105 Iss. 019 Ref. 273398|
>AB- It is well established that the consumption of wheat prolamins causes
>    the characteristic symptoms of coeliac disease (CD) in subjects who are
>    predisposed to it. There is currently much discussion about the role of
>    oats in the pathogenesis of CD. Evidently, it is important that oats
>    used for clinical studies are not contaminated with wheat. In this
>    study, 38 oat samples were investigated by polymerase chain reaction
>    (PCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA): 30 samples
>    consisted of flakes or grains and 8 probes were industrially processed
>    oat diets. Wheat prolamin (gliadin) detection by ELISA showed that 16
>    of these samples contained less than the detection limit of 0.2 mg
>    gliadin/100 g dry weight; 21 samples contained less than 2.8 mg
>    gliadin/100 g dry weight and 1 sample reached 38 mg gliadin/100 g dry
>    weight, clearly exceeding the allowed Swiss limit of 10 mg gliadin/100
>    g dry weight for gluten-free products. Spiking experiments showed that
>    the wheat PCR system is about ten times more sensitive than the ELISA
>    system, provided that the isolated DNA is fully amplifiable. Thus,
>    wheat DNA could be detected by the wheat PCR system in ten samples with
>    gliadin contents below the detection limit of the ELISA system used.
>    Applying a eukaryote-specific 18S-PCR system the presence of
>    amplifiable DNA was verified. Only two of eight samples of industrially
>    processed oat products contained amplifiable DNA, the other six samples
>    had no detectable DNA left. One sample was wheat-PCR positive. However,
>    all eight samples contained detectable amounts of gliadin in the ELISA.