GET-FACTS: Genes, Environment and Therapies-Food Allergy Clinical Tolerance Studies Planning Workshop

The ability to eat a variety of foods is a basic requirement for sustenance, normal growth and healthy nutrition. However, for many Canadian families, food allergy transforms the simple act of eating or drinking into a much more complex process. Allergies to specific foods requires strict avoidance, careful reading of labels, and vigilant identification of potential sources of allergen contamination. Families of affected individuals are routinely concerned about re-living the symptoms of a food induced reaction, including swelling, hives, vomiting, respiratory distress or full-blown anaphylaxis. They are marked by the fact that so basic a need as eating has become a challenge. The increasing incidence of food allergy in the past two decades has led to this condition affecting a substantial portion of Canadian households. The most important reason for this fear and frustration is the lack of viable treatment options for food allergy. To date, strict avoidance of the offending substances, as well as provision of emergency doses of adrenalin, are the only universally recommended therapies. The key question for individuals affected by food allergy is: Can the state of allergy be altered? Can one go from being unable to ingest a food or a group of foods, to being able to tolerate these substances? We will assemble a group of researchers in a two-day educational and planning workshop to address these important questions. We have proposed a multi-center, multi-disciplinary team that will focus on the important issue of immune tolerance of foods for those with food allergy and develop new approaches and evaluate new treatments for patients with food allergy. The planning meeting will take place in late November 2012, at the Meakins Christie Laboratories in Montreal, under the auspices of the McGill University Health Center Research Institute.