Allergy texts
A colleague's drawn my attention to a blog entry on our SMS text alert service for people with food allergy and intolerance. As a novice blogger (Andrew's due back from holiday next week) I'm learning...
View ArticleAllergy issues
The Food Standards Agency has an active programme in place to help consumers with food allergies and intolerances. This is an area that the Agency takes very seriously and the Board received a progress...
View ArticlePeanut allergy
It's easy to work out what the advice should be when the science behind an issue is clear cut but much more difficult when the evidence is incomplete or contradictory – as is often the case. For...
View ArticleFood allergy and intolerance research
I called in on the review of our food allergy and intolerance research programme yesterday. We carry out formal reviews of our research programmes every five years, where we ask a panel of independent...
View ArticleEating nuts when pregnant
There were stories in several papers last week linking regular consumption of nuts by mothers during pregnancy with a higher risk of developing asthma in their children. This is another study in a...
View ArticleBook to cook
I read today that Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls launched Real Meals – Simple Cooking Made Easy, a free cook book for 11 year olds, which contains 32 recipes to help...
View ArticleAn encouraging reaction
Peanut allergy has been in the news recently with the announcement by researchers at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge of a potential treatment for food allergy. Results from the first four patients...
View ArticleNational Allergy Week
This week is National Allergy Week and Coeliac Awareness Week, highlighting important issues for nearly two million people in the UK who are affected by these conditions.There are approximately 200...
View ArticleScience can simply be ambiguous
You may remember that at our Board meeting back in December, we decided that our advice on eating peanuts when pregnant, breast-feeding and weaning needed to change. This is because a major review by...
View ArticleDon't do it yourself diagnostics
I know that it can be extremely worrying for parents when they suspect their child has a food allergy, but wrongly diagnosing someone with a food allergy could also have a serious negative effect on...
View ArticleHow does weaning affect allergy development?
As Head of Food Allergy at the FSA, I'd like to draw attention to an article published in the BMJ today, by researchers at UCL, that suggests babies might benefit from being given solids earlier than...
View ArticleIs vitamin D a cure for food allergy?
With the reported incidence of allergy rising lots of research is underway to find out the factors that may be involved. The latest piece of research published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical...
View ArticleConfessions of a (voluntary) coeliac
Food allergies have been my professional focus for many years now, although I’m fortunate not to suffer myself. And while we do a lot of research to help understand what it’s like to have a food...
View ArticlePresenting uncertainty
While Andrew’s out of the office I thought I’d draw your attention to an interesting article on the BBC’s website about communicating risk.This is always an interesting topic for us and one we tackled...
View ArticleAllergy cure on the horizon
A couple of allergy stories have emerged in the press recently including a Mail on Sunday reporter being told she has allergies to sixty food types. I’m not a doctor (well not a medical one anyway)...
View ArticleTaking the nut-free challenge
Following on from our gluten-free week back in May, five of us from the Food Allergy team and Terrence Collis, our communications director, decided to go nut free for a week to experience what it would...
View ArticleSumming up our science
One of the real pleasures of my job is signing off my annual report, and the fifth report is now available. A pleasure because it gives me the chance to demonstrate the commitment of the FSA to science...
View ArticleNutty labelling
You may have seen stories in the media recently about bags of monkey nuts being withdrawn from sale because they were not labelled as peanuts. It may seem obvious that monkey nuts contain nuts, as some...
View ArticleAllergy in the headlines
There's been lots of press coverage about Food Allergy and Intolerance Week. All of it good awareness-raising stuff, particularly if it helps to clear up the confusion out there between food allergy...
View ArticleAllergy texts
A colleague's drawn my attention to a blog entry on our SMS text alert service for people with food allergy and intolerance. As a novice blogger (Andrew's due back from holiday next week) I'm learning...
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