Why do allergy immunotherapies for pollens and dust work but not for food allergies like peanuts and fish?

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I am allergic to both dusts and pollens as well as shellfish (which sucks balls because I love shellfish). I regularly receive immunotherapy shots for all of my allergies except my food allergies. I am deeply disappointed that there isn’t an allergy immunotherapy available for foods.

In: Biology

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

They would work in theory and oral immunotherapy for peanuts is a relatively mew example. However there are much greater risks with deadly allergies which is both a reason to try and not try immunotherapy. It’s desperately needed but very dangerous.

Anonymous 0 Comments

MSc immunology here.

After a bit of googling (allergies aren’t my specific expertise and I wasn’t sure if there was some fundamental difference between pollen and shellfish antigens I wasn’t aware of), it seems to me like there’s no real reason why these therapies couldn’t be developed right now. It just hasn’t been done (yet).

You can probably blame big pharma for not seeing enough of a market in shellfish treatments, as opposed to hay fever which is pretty huge, and just not bothering to pump the necessary millions of funding into it.