Thursday, April 19, 2012

Pharmaceutical industry 'rejoices' at demise of pioneering EPD allergy treatment


Pharmaceutical industry 'rejoices' at demise of pioneering EPD allergy treatment

Charlotte Davis
13th April, 2012

Enzyme Potentiated Desensitisation is a groundbreaking treatment for allergy sufferers. But the recent closure of a firm championing EPD leaves its future in doubt. Drug companies and mainstream doctors are unlikely to be mourning, says Charlotte Davis

As I lay on my back, looking up at a warm summer sky, I could hear the bees buzzing in the flowers and the gentle drone of a tractor as it criss-crossed the fields nearby.  I lay where I had landed, felled by an allergic reaction. By my side was a spent epi-pen. My body ached from the excessive dose of synthetic adrenalin roaring through my system but at least I was breathing again. I was 19 and glad to be alive.

Like many others, my allergies had started innocuously enough, a little nettle-rash, occasional mysterious swellings, but now something had pushed me over the edge and I was in an anaphylactic spiral from which there seemed no way out.

According to the British Allergy Foundation, one in three people suffer from an allergy at some time in their lives. The numbers increase every year and as many as half of those affected are children. One in three UK 13-14 year olds suffer from asthma, one in four from hay fever and one in five from eczema. And allergies aren't just getting more common, they are getting more serious. Between 1990 and 2000 hospital admissions for life-threatening allergic reactions increased by 700 per cent, giving the UK one of the highest allergy rates in the world.  
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