<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
Dear Listmates -
After reading Aggie's post, and reading the article on wheat gluten textiles and clothes that the researches are developing, I tracked down the contact information for the researchers.
Please write and/or call these people. I have also copied the text of a letter I just emailed them from a link to Yiqi Yange, one of the researchers, on their website. The address for both researchers is the same, so it follows their phone numbers, below:
Time zone - They are in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Narendra Reddy (Narendra Reddy is female, for the salutation)
Phone: (402) 472-3020
I don't have the email for Narendra Reddy, but you can email her at Prof. Yiqi Yang's email address, below.
Prof. Yiqi Yang (Yiqi Yang is male, and is a professor)
Phone: (402) 472-5197
Email: [log in to unmask]
Address for both:
University of Nebraska at Lincoln
College of Education and Human Services
Textile Science Group
Home Economics Building, Room 226
1650 N. 35th Street
Lincoln, NE 68583
Here is the text of the email letter I sent to Yiqi Yang a short time ago:
Dear Y. Yang:
PLEASE NOTE - Concerning your research on making fiber/textiles from wheat gluten: I am one of 3 million citizens of the USA who has Celiac Disease (gluten intolerance). It is estimated that another 30 million have the genes to develop this disease.
On that basis, it is not a good idea to develop textiles, fabric, or clothes from wheat gluten.
We will not only be at risk if we buy clothes and don't know that they are made from wheat gluten, but other who buy textiles or clothes made from wheat gluten will have wheat gluten on their hands from wearing clothes made from wheat gluten.
Cleaning cloths, used to wipe dishes and counters, would be made from wheat gluten, putting us further at risk.
Please give this some serious thought. Our problems are with glutens that contain the gliadin fraction of protein. These problems exist with wheat, oats, rye, barley, triticale, semolina, spelt, Durham, and Kamut.
Our reactions are serious, and cause destruction of the absorptive surface (villi) of the lining of the top of the small intestine. Our immediate reactions can be to be extremely ill for a few days, but it takes the villi a full month to repair every time we are exposed to gluten, even in trace amounts, and we must avoid it entirely.
While fabric is not ingested, fibers from fabric can be ingested from wheat gluten textiles used to wipe plates, pots and pans, tables where we eat, or even people wiping their hands on gluten-based cloth and then handling our food or plates or forks or spoons or cups.
Before you take this to market, please think of the risk to those of us with Celiac Disease, and those with the genes to develop Celiac Disease. The risk is serious.
Gluten from corn is not a problem. Perhaps you could research this possibility. This would spare the millions with Celiac Disease, or who have the genes to develop Celiac Disease, a great deal of grief.
Those of us who have Celiac Disease and continue to be exposed to the problematic glutens are put at risk not only for immediate reactions, but for a higher incidence of cancers in the future, and for developing other autoimmune disorders.
The strongest links between Celiac Disease and other autoimmune disorders are to Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), Diabetes, and Sjogrens syndrome. Those are serious disorders.
Many of us can develop Dermatitis Herpetaformis and other serious skin reactions from topical exposure to gluten, also.
Babies chew on their clothes, their baby blankets, and other items, and would ingest wheat gluten, also. For those with Celiac Disease, that is serious.
I hope you will do your part to ensure our safety. I hope and pray that you will contact the following to learn more about Celiac Disease, and the risks you may expose us all to if textiles, clothes, cleaning clothes, and other items are made from wheat gluten:
Celiac Disease program, the University of Chicago,
head of program is Dr. Guandalini, a pediatric
gastroenterologist.
His email address:
[log in to unmask]
Phone: 1-773-702-3051
___
Center for Celiac Research, the University of Maryland,
headed by Dr. Alesio Fassano.
Email: [log in to unmask]
Phone: 410-328-6749
Please consider the millions of people who have Celiac Disease, or are at risk for developing it, before you bring a product to market that puts those millions of people at risk.
Thank you.
Yours truly,
Vicki E. Jones, RYT
Listmates, I think we all need to write Prof. Yiqi Yang and Ms. Narendra Reddy, and let them know the risks of bringing their wheat gluten textile products to market.
Please, everyone, pitch in.
-Vicki in Illinonis
---------------------------------
TV dinner still cooling?
Check out "Tonight's Picks" on Yahoo! TV.
*Support summarization of posts, reply to the SENDER not the Celiac List*
Archives are at: Http://Listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?LIST=CELIAC
|
