Doctor rejects health shop tests ‘racketeering’

THE HSE’s only medical allergist has accused health food shops and websites that offer allergy tests to the public of “racketeering and opportunism”.

Internationally, hospital admissions for food allergies among children have risen by 500% in the past 20 years – with doctors admitting they don’t know what is driving the increase.

However, in Ireland, we have no idea about the extent of allergies due to an absence of postgraduate allergist training for medical doctors.

An allergist/immunologist is a medical doctor with speciality training in the diagnosis and treatment of allergic diseases, asthma and diseases of the immune system.

Professor Jonathan Hourihane, consultant paediatrician at Cork University Hospital, has warned that “not enough medical attention is given to allergies in this country”.

“Allergies are definitely being ignored and there won’t be any action on this until a politician’s child dies from an allergy. The Government is ignoring this area at their peril. I would like to see a training course put in place on our course, but to do that, you would need two allergist supervisors and I’m the only one in the country working in the public sector.

“Secondly, we would need funding and there isn’t a hope of getting funding at the moment unless it is for cancers or eliminating trollies,” he said.

Many reasons are being suggested for the rise in allergies, including homes being so clean that children’s immune systems are unexposed to bugs, a lack of vitamin D from the sun, bad diets and the increased use of paracetemol through medicines like Calpol.

“Those theories are all out there. However, we do not have full scientific certainty around them all. There is a need for much research in this area,” he said.

Despite the plethora of people who say they have an allergy to a particular food, Dr Hourihane say just 2% of the population really do suffer from allergies.

However, these allergies lead to complications, large numbers of emergency department visits and hospital stopovers.

Food reactions can affect the skin, the lungs or the intestine, and are recognised as a major paediatric problem in Britain and other western countries. In Britain, it is documented that 6%-8% of children under three are affected by food allergies.

Prof Hourihane is arguing that increased investment in this sector would save the HSE millions every year.

“For example, up to 40% of asthma sufferers also have hay fever. If you tackle their hay fever, you will find that their need for asthma medication will fall by 50%, as will the number of times that they present at emergency departments,” he said.

He says he has no regard for the online and shop tests that are sold across the country, disregarding any previous test results when patients present at his clinic.

In Britain, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has issued draft guidelines for GPs which urge wider testing for allergies but warn of the dangers of unproven tests sold by practitioners of alternative medicine.