Hi -

I think part of my previous message was misunderstood:

The only reason not to wait (until age 3) for allergy testing would be in
the cases where it is very inconvenient or difficult to maintain a healthy
diet for the child without the food(s) in question.

If a child has multiple allergies, for example, then it might be very hard
to maintain a healthy diet.  In that case, the allergist might pick one food
to test for prior to age 3.  Or if the family has multiple food allergies,
such as one member allergic to milk, another to soy, another to egg, the
allergist might want to test the person likeliest to outgrow an allergy so
that cooking (and the risk of cross-contamination) might become less
complicated.

In most cases, there's no need to re-test prior to age three.

Sorry about any confusion in my previous post.

--Beth Kevles
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  http://web.mit.edu/kevles/www/nomilk.html -- a page for the milk-allergic