FAIR Projects
Allergy has always been the Cinderella of medicine, with little training or even acknowledgment of its existence, being given to medical practitioners. As a consequence, many people who have suffered allergies are often accused of malingering. If they are believed, they may be prescribed drugs which often at best mask the symptoms leaving the underlying problem unsolved. There are many and varied allergy tests available, but none are guaranteed to be accurate. There is much anecdotal evidence for the use of alternative medicines, but to date there has been no medical research to substantiate the efficacy of this.
Food allergies are generally managed by a range different assessment procedures. Whereas some health professionals use a detailed dietary history validated against an immunological assessment such as total IgE, others use food diaries, food checklists or over the counter self administered blood tests. Because these processes are time consuming they are often not appropriate for primary care where consultations are time limited. Equally, they often fail to provide any useful information. The immunological tests can result in false negatives, with patients showing no immunological reaction at all.
It has been long felt that hard research into allergy was urgently needed. Although Government agreed that this was necessary, no funding was forthcoming. As a consequence The Foundation for Allergy Information and Research, a registered charitable organisation was founded in 2002. The objectives of FAIR are those of general medical research, education and dissemination of medical information with particular reference to allergy, including food allergy and intolerance, and all symptoms or diseases thereby associated.
The first three areas of work undertaken by FAIR:
The FAIR Database
Mark Howard was commissioned to compile a research Database, in response to there being a desperate need for a single source of scientific references, which UK doctors working in the field of nutritional and environmental medicine, could access. This database, the result of his work now contains approximately 100,000 references, and will be kept updated.
King's College London - 5 year research programme
The Trust is funding a 5 year research programme in association with King's College London, led by Dr Jeremy Sanderson a consultant gastroenterologist, and Professor Jonathon Brostoff. In this, the first conjunction of the clinical and research sides of medicine, it is envisaged that this can produce invaluable insights into gut mechanism and the effects of food allergy, food intolerance and many other diseases such as Crohns disease that may have a common link. In the longer term it is hoped that tests may be developed for gut dysbiosis, and in time, effective tests for food allergy.
Read more about the research project at King's College London
Practice Nurse Programme at The University of Surrey
In 2005 two research fellows were appointed to The University of Surrey under the supervision of Professor Jane Ogden, to develop and evaluate a primary based nurse specialist clinic for food allergy.
The aims are:
- To develop a diagnostic tool for use in primary care by a nurse specialist
- To carry out a needs assessment to evaluate the potential uptake of a primary care based allergy clinic
- To develop clinical guidelines for the management of patients with a food allergy for use by a nurse specialist in primary care
- To run an allergy clinic in primary care for two years
- To provide some preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of the
- clinic
In January 2006 four practice nurses were appointed to the programme, based in Birmingham, Glasgow, and north and south London. FAIR gets regular requests for Primary nurse led clinics to be placed throughout the UK, but we need to attract sources of funding to achieve this.
Read more about the Practice Nurse Programme at The University of Surrey
Hazel Clayton
Director