Last weekend, the Discovery Channel (which my husband is regularly glued to, watching The World’s Deadliest Fishing Trip, Garage Sale Wars, or whatnot) aired a one-hour program on food allergies, “An Emerging Epidemic: Food Allergies in America.”
I heard about it Sunday night and sat down to watch it yesterday. Despite a touch of the “reenactment” drama, this was a very good program and I highly recommend it. I consider it must-see TV not just for individuals and families dealing with food allergies, but also for those of us who don’t have that particular worry on our plate. I think that food allergy-free families with young or school-age children may especially benefit, because with about 1 in 13 children having a food allergy, odds are good that at least two children in your child’s classroom will have one.
The program did a good job of making it quite clear that food allergies are serious, even fatal, business while at the same time taking a positive note: life with food allergies can be a normal life, albeit with some extra precautions. At the end, the program also covered some of the current, still experimental, research on possible cures for food allergies. Right now, there is no cure.
BTW, Steve Carrell narrated the show, if that influences you. If you are the sort who cries easily during sad movies, happy movies, and greeting card commercials, I suggest you have a box of tissue handy. Especially during the part when a doctor starts tearing up as he talks about narrowly saving a young boy who came into the ER with anaphylactic shock because of a rogue peanut granola bar.
