Food allergy in childhood
- Community Child Health, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
- Correspondence to
Dr Colver, Community Child Health, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Sir James Spence Institute, Royal Victoria Infirmary, Queen Victoria Road, Newcastle NE1 4LP, UK;
allan.colver{at}ncl.ac.uk
We were surprised by some of the content of Clark and Ewan’s paper1 and their interpretation of our data.2
As death certification of allergy deaths is problematic, we collected reports through the prospective BPSU mechanism and other sources as listed in our article. No additional deaths in the study period have been brought to our attention since publication. Our finding of no deaths due to peanut under the age of 13 is supported rather than refuted by the study of Bock,3 cited by Clark and Ewan. In Bock’s study, which looked at all ages, there were 10 childhood deaths (compared with 8 in ours) and they found no deaths due to peanut allergy under the age of 12. The death of a child aged two years was due to brazil nut, not peanut.
Clark and …
