Synopses & Reviews
"The landscape of childhood has changed. And as parents, teachers, and caregivers are continually challenged to meet the increasing needs of food-allergic children . . . Heather Fraser sheds light on the sudden increase in peanut allergy, providing readers with detailed insight and a valuable historical perspective." andmdash;Robyn O'Brien, author of The Unhealthy TruthWhy is the peanut allergy an epidemic that only seems to be found in Western cultures? Over four million people in the United States alone are affected by peanut allergies, while there are no reported cases in India, a country where peanuts are the primary ingredient in many baby food products. Where did this allergy come from, and does medicine play any kind of role in the phenomenon? After her own child had an anaphylactic reaction to peanut butter, historian Heather Fraser decided to discover the answers to these questions.
In The Peanut Allergy Epidemic, Fraser delves into the history of this allergy, trying to understand why it largely develops in children and studying its relationship with social, medical, political, and economic factors. In an international overview of the subject, she compares the epidemic in the United States to sixteen other geographical locations, finding that in addition to the United States, in countries such as Canada, the UK, Australia, and Sweden there is a one in fifty chance that a child, especially a male, will develop a peanut allergy. Fraser also highlights alternative medicines and explores issues of vaccine safety and other food allergies, making his book a must-read for every parent, teacher, and health professional.
Review
and#147;Fraser has created a necessary text for anyone concerned with allergies, anaphylaxis, or the rise in life-threatening reactions to peanuts, which has become widespread and epidemic.and#8221; and#151;Mark Blaxill, cofounder, Health Choice and the Canary Party; coauthor, Age of Autism
and#147;Phenomenal detective work! Heather Fraser weaves history, medicine, and science into a convincing hypothesis to solve a modern medical mystery. The Peanut Allergy Epidemic explains the origins and recent dramatic rise in incidence of peanut allergy in particular, but also provides a context for a wide range of other increasingly common immunological diseases. It should be required reading for pediatricians. I hope it is read by parents and prospective parents everywhere before blindly consenting to prophylactic medical interventions for their children.and#8221; and#151;Jamie Deckoff-Jones, MD
and#147;May in time come to be recognized as a major landmark in medical history. . . . The author has shown plausible reasons that certain substances in vaccines may be playing a contributory role in many increasingly prevalent childhood health problems.and#8221; and#151;Harold E. Buttram, MD
and#147;This magnificent book is in a rare class of books that present impeccable scientific evidence in prose that is accessible to the educated lay public, while slowly unfolding a gripping mystery that grabs the readerand#8217;s attention all the way through. If Heather Fraser is right about the link between vaccines and peanut allergy, and the evidence speaks for itself, then it opens up the frightening possibility that vaccines play a major role in all the food allergies that beset todayand#8217;s children.and#8221; and#151;Stephanie Seneff, PhD, senior research scientist, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
and#147;In a world where scientific research demands thorough investigation into all causes of the allergy epidemic but one, Heather Fraser stands alone, shining her light on the stones intentionally left unturned for the last quarter of a century.and#8221; and#151;Robyn Ross, BS, JD, allergy advocate
and#147;[Fraser] masterfully demonstrates how, time and again, bizarre appearance and waning of widespread allergies to certain foods in human populations has followed the introduction and then withdrawal of specific medical formulations delivered by injection . . . The history of clinical and immunologic research illuminated by The Peanut Allergy Epidemic paves the way to finding the cause that will first be vehemently denied, then ridiculed, and finally accepted.and#8221; and#151;Tetyana Obukhanych, PhD, author, Vaccine Illusion
and#147;A compelling work on a subject that is taboo to the mainstream media.and#8221; and#151;Lawrence Solomon, columnist, Financial Post; executive director, Energy Probe
Synopsis
Essential Reading for Every ParentIn the early 1990s, tens of thousands of children with severe peanut and food allergies arrived for kindergarten at schools in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States.
The phenomenon of a life-threatening allergy in kids in only these countries occurred simultaneously, without warning, and it quickly intensified. The number of peanut allergic children in the United States alone went from virtually none to about two million in just twenty years. As these children have aged, the combined number of American adults and children allergic to peanuts has grown to a total of four million.
How and why has this epidemic occurred? In The Peanut Allergy Epidemic, Heather Fraser explains:
Precisely when the peanut allergy epidemic began
How a child-specific allergy epidemic happened before, at the close of the nineteenth century
That in the early twentieth century doctors including the 1913 Nobel Prize in medicine winner identified vaccination as the cause of the first pediatric allergy epidemic impacting 50 percent of children
That more than one hundred years of medical literature describes how vaccination creates allergy to what is in the shot, air, or body at the time of injection
How changes in US vaccination legislation sparked the allergy epidemic in children
Fraser also highlights alternative medicines and explores issues of vaccine safety and other food allergies, making this fully updated second edition a must-read for every parent, teacher, and health professional.
About the Author
Heather Fraser, MA, BA, BEd, is a natural health practitioner, writer, and founder of Bio-physical Resonance based in Toronto, Canada. In 1995, her one-year-old son reacted violently with anaphylaxis to a taste of peanut butter. Visit heatherfraser.org.