THE CHANGE IN THE DEFINITION OF ALLERGY

Not everyone was happy with the change in the definition of allergy. At the time this change was made, several doctors in the US were already studying what they called ‘delayed’ or ‘masked’ food allergies. In these cases, the symptoms were much more varied. They also took far longer to materialize and were less acute. Because they rarely gave positive skin-prick tests, they could not be included in the new definition of allergy.

While the doctors concerned with ‘masked food allergy’ protested at the redefinition of allergy announced by their colleagues, they lost out to the newly arisen orthodoxy. There was pressure on them to conform, both from the medical establishment and, in some cases, from large food manufacturers who were funding research, and were alarmed at the idea of whole sections of the populace discovering they could not eat wheat or milk – the two most common culprits as identified by the alternative allergists. There are very few processed foods that do not contain wheat or milk.

Some of the doctors involved in such unpopular research were highly respected medical scientists, with promising research careers ahead of them. But all this pressure eventually forced them out of the medical mainstream and into private practice, where they continued to use the term ‘allergy’ in their own way – to mean simply ‘altered reactivity’. This tradition has continued in the USA, and many American doctors working in this field still use ‘allergy’ in this much broader sense. Other doctors, especially in Britain, prefer the less controversial terms ‘food intolerance’ or ‘food sensitivity’.

Another trans-Atlantic difference should be pointed out here. The American doctors working in this field describe themselves as clinical ecologists because they are concerned with the effect of a great variety of environmental factors – such as pollens, synthetic chemicals and air pollutants – as well as food. Some of their British and Australian counterparts also use this title, but most reject it because of its perceived links with the worst sort of fringe medicine and bogus diagnostic methods. Nevertheless, most of the British doctors who study and treat food intolerance also consider other forms of allergy and sensitivity, including chemical sensitivity, a subject that is discussed in detail in Chapter Nine.

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