I joined a group of concerned parents, teachers and health care providers to discuss a growing danger to children: food allergies.  The number of children with food allergies is rising – emergency room visits to Children’s Hospital alone grew by over 30% just last year. 

Many parents may have a child with allergies or know one in school.  Simple things like the residue from a peanut butter sandwich can trigger a life threatening shock.  We heard from Dr. Rhian Morcott, a mother of an allergic son, about the psychological strains medical crises can open for both children and their parents.  We also heard from Patti Dorner, the Everett Elementary School Nurse, about the precautions she must take with over 400 children at school – including over two dozen with food allergies.

Most of all, we heard from David and Denise Bunning whose sons Bryan and David suffer from food allergies.  David and Denise have turned their struggle into a cause to help their boys and parents throughout America to care for and one day cure food allergy. 

I told the Town Hall that I supported the doubling of biomedical research at the National Institutes for Health and would work with Dr. Tony Fauci to help the Bunnings make the case for additional research.  While funding to fight food allergy research has gone up in the last five years from $2 million per year to $8 million, the growing number of parents and children who deal with this shows there is more we can do.

To learn more about food allergies and what the Bunnings are doing, log on to www.foodallergyproject.org.