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Donald D. Kasarda <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> It seems to me that there are two main possibilities:
>
> 1. There is no harm from the minute amounts of gluten in wheat starch
> prepared specifically for use in food products for celiac patients or in
> malt extracts used for flavoring and US celiac patients are following an
> excessively strict set of dietary regulations.
>
> 2. There is harm from these minute amounts, but this harm is not obvious and
> sufficiently low so as to be unrecognized by both patients and physicians in
> the UK and Europe...

Don - I would be interested to know your definition of the word
"harm" - do you mean it in terms of measurable physical damage, or in
terms of suffering and distress? I could add to the anecdotal
evidence by repeating my experiences with 'safe' wheat starch (in
'gf'-bread) and barley enzymes (in rice dream) - a noticed a gradual
general decline in my health - tiredness, mood changes, GI symptoms.
which improved immediately within 48 hours of removing them from my
diet.

> ...I do not accept the anecdotal opinions of
> patients as scientific proof without some objective measurements having been
> made to back them up (for example, biopsies taken to look for
> intraepithelial lymphocyte infiltration--as has been done in the study of
> oats by the Dublin group).

This may sound laughable to your trained scientific mind, but
wouldn't it always be better to accept the evidence of the sufferer
above physical 'scientific' evidence, until science has devised a way
of measuring the unmeasurable?

Max Desorgher