The increasing use of repeated doses, sometimes daily, of such drugs as albuterol, a bronchial dilator has corresponded to this increase in fatalities, especially in the inner cities of America. Since asthma is an allergic disease in most cases, along with a secondary inflammatory change in the bronchioles, the use of inhaled corticosteroids regularly, as a prevention of the severe attacks of wheezing, is becoming a standard medical procedure for severe asthmatics. This has been more effective than waiting for the shortness of breath to begin, but obviously does nothing to eliminate the underlying cause. Food is not the only allergen-containing material that precipitates asthma and the other allergic diseases. Inhalants, such as house dust mites, moulds, and pollens often play an important role.
Many individuals are allergic to several foods as well as several inhalants.
Unlike food, many of these inhalants cannot easily be avoided, so there may be a need for weekly desensitizing injections of an extract which contain gradually increasing doses of these offending substances. It was until March of this year, when stories about genetically engineered foods began appearing on the front pages of newspapers throughout the country. Genetic engineering of foods, another trick against Mother Nature, is almost certain to bring with it mass confusion about food allergies. The first attempts to introduce the genes of Brazil Nuts, with its over 1,000 proteins, into soybeans, were successful in creating a more protein-dense soybean. A likely moratorium may halt this new product until the allergy consequences are fully known.