After sharing this last week, I've discovered there's a bunch of conspiracy theories out there about the increase in peanut allergy. The most alarming target? Vaccines.
What we know: Peanut allergies are on the rise.
What scientists don't know for certain: Why peanut allergies are on the rise
Clear danger combined with gap in scientific understanding creates perfect conditions for conspiracy theories to blossom, and boy are they blossoming…
What scientists don't know for certain: Why peanut allergies are on the rise
Clear danger combined with gap in scientific understanding creates perfect conditions for conspiracy theories to blossom, and boy are they blossoming…
Vaccines are, perhaps unsurprisingly, a prime conspiracy target for this issue too, for allegedly having peanut ingredients (they don't) that trigger allergy via exposure in infancy…
The peanut allergy/vaccine ingredient conspiracy falls apart pretty quickly, though. Besides the fact that vaccines have no peanut products in them, early, regular exposure to peanuts/peanut derivatives has been shown to *prevent* peanut allergy qz.com/352796/scienti…
Shows that we badly need more research on food allergies like this, combined with effective science communication to get the findings out to the world, because people are seeing these gaps in our knowledge and inventing monsters to fit there.
