Peanut allergies: avoid or treat?

Available for over a year

Helen's son Carl is taking part in a treatment programme in the UK to help build his resistance to peanuts. These nascent treatments are not yet widely available to peanut allergy sufferers. Until now, total avoidance through careful planning and rigorously reading ingredients on food packaging has been the first line of defence, with adrenaline injections as an emergency measure. Parents like Helen want their children to have a third safety net in the form of resistance to small doses of peanut. The kind of amount that could be accidentally ingested. But the treatments are time consuming and raise the risk of a reaction. So, is it worth the effort?