New Euro-allergy site

I was hoping to commend this new allergy site, http://www.infoallergy.com, launched as part of the European Allergy Conference which has been bringing together specialists all week.

The conference, run by the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, has been impressive with some impressive findings. The news service is picking some of them up.

I've thought this organisation is a little mercurial and the incomplete nature of the web-site tends to confirm this. Even worse it's definition of allergy is a little incomplete - and guess who barely features?

Yes, salicylate hypersensitivity is, kind of, not there. In fact I have found it - and that's where there's a big inconsistency.

For there is a section on "allergic" reactions to NSAIDs - that's medical-speak for aspirin and nurofen and similar drugs. And from this I learn you can suffer from "non allergic hypersensitivity reaction" - which gives reactions similar to allergy. I also learn there's a relationship to Samter Triad. If you have it you are "specially at risk". You probably knew that if you knew you had Samter Triad (the Triad is a runny nose, nose polyps and asthma, caused by salicylates).

The difficulty is the real and daily problem comes from salicylates in food, not in aspirin. And when you turn to the food section of the site there is no mention of this at all. So if your food is giving you hives and runny nose and swollen lips and throat - and all the other symptoms - you may well be stuck.

Euro-clinicians, you can do better than this!

RAS