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Therapy to Suppress Peanut Allergies Is Reported

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

After years of frustration, allergists meeting in Washington proclaimed a small but significant victory against life-threatening peanut allergies.

Five children, long urged to avoid peanuts like the plague, today tote peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches in their lunch boxes, blithely share candy with friends and accept snacks at other people's homes without quizzing their hosts on the treats' ingredients.

The children appear to have lost their allergies, said Dr. Wesley Burks, a Duke University pediatric allergist who presented the results of two clinical trials Sunday at a meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.