As the field of immunology developed in the wild west of “scientific medicine” in the 20th century, physician specialists attempted to “build up immunity” to allergens by exposing patients to increasing amounts of proprietary concoctions of local allergens through scratches, injections with “controlled dosing”, and or eye drops directly into the “conjunctival sac.”
They might use injections of milk, calcium sulfur, turpentine, tubercle bacillus, their own blood serum, or parasitic extract from lungs, specifically large roundworm. Doctors were experimenting with flu vaccines and typhoid, using bacteria from their intestines (early biome cures), even snake venom. “Most were nothing more than a by product of worthless dross.” MacPhail quotes a more recent expert. Even the snake venom.
After WWII, allergists experimented with isolation chambers, filtering masks, nasal douches of carbon dioxide, (before greenhouse gases were a concern). They shocked patients electrically, even exposed them to UV and X-rays as treatments for seasonal attacks of hay fever. The cure was worse than the disease.
The modern advice to install HEPA filtered air conditioning and clear the home of all sources of allergens is often impossible, even for the wealthiest sufferers, but that was and remains the primary prescription of allergists. Exposure be damned.
Their secondary line of defense is ready for the white flag of surrender to avoidance is an array of pharmaceutical drugs, some OTC, most prescription only for a captured audience. There are ten FDA approved antihistamines on the market, which prescribers shuffle through as patients “want to switch, because of the persistence of severe symptoms while taking the drug, The unmet need is all the people with severe disease that the commonly effective drugs are not working on.”
Oral steroids were developed for asthma because other drugs were not effective at controlling attacks of inflamed air passages. Steroid use “can cause serious tissue damage over time. Better than dying of asthma.” Inhaled steroids localize damage, and the death rate from asthma has dropped in western, wealthy nations after ephedrine mists were packaged and approved. Advising patients to use only as absolutely needed, when they became anxious or stressed and have no training in progressive relaxation and breath control, is a known known.
Beta agonists are bronchodilators. Six are approved for inhalation as short term therapy, basically formulations of ephedrine, used for a hundred years in western medicine to treat asthma, if only temporarily, a few thousand in China for regulating the lung meridian. Chinese medicine can be as formulaic as western in prescribing, though their diagnostic system and causation chains rely on concepts completely alien to modern medical training.
If patients don’t respond, they graduate to inhaled corticosteroids, any of 8 formulations of oral steroids, with all the long term side effects. Like betting on red. Bound to pay off.
A brand new class of biologic drugs, monoclonal antibodies, are coming on the market, hugely expensive naturally. There was limited use to treat covid because of costs, still more frequently than ivermectin, extremely cheap when used as directed. No matter, there’s a deep well of allergy patients.
Dupilumab is a “new and highly effective antibody treatment for asthma and eczema.” It costs $36,000 a year, and causes conjunctivitis in 25% of patients, plus elevation of white blood cells causing other diseases. “That drug in not going to be the panacea, but for now, it’s the best drug that we have.” Dr. Schliemer, professor of allergy and immunology, microbiology, immunology and otolaryngogogy at Northwestern’s School of Medicine, told MacPhail.
Can’t get more expert than that. Apparently never heard of the Buteyko method of breath training to cure asthma and other lung diseases. More on that later.
Food and venom allergies can be fatal to the most sensitive by anaphylactic shock. Their backup drug to avoiding exposure is adrenaline injection. Most popularly the EpiPen. These preloaded syringes can’t be stored in the glove box, unless it’s climate controlled. The rentier riche purchaser of the patent, jacked up the price so rapidly that even a toothless Congress grilled him.
For atopic dermatitis, when the skin turns bright red, becoming broken, dry and peeling, they sell special moisturizers to use up several times a day. These are topical corticosteroids, with seven different groups licensed. They tend to be prescribed in ascending order, least to most potent.
With eczema, “most patients have no idea of what triggers their outbreaks.” MacPhail trots out the official vague theories about environmental, chemical, heat or exercise causation, without mentioning diet. Avoidance of environmental triggers may not be an option, but eliminating Toxic Waste foodstuffs, by eating organic healthy fats, veggies, carbs and proteins, with food based supplements (vitamins D, C, A and EFA), is far more affordable than pharmaceutical products. MacPhail, investigative stenographer, seems ignorant of anecdotal evidence from uncounted tens of thousands of relieved sufferers.
If their entry drugs aren’t preventive there are systemic steroids, oral or injected , powerful immuno-suppressants with rebound effects if discontinued. And of course bacterial infections are more likely with inmmuno-suppressants, so antibiotic oral and ointments are prescribed. Biome be damned.
Eczema immunotherapy shots may “expand treatment options.” Immunotherapy vaccines are the rage among researchers. NIH funded development, using allergen combinations with synergistic molecules to speed up “ tolerance induction.” These molecules of proteins are something the immune system already recognizes without alarm, a trusted source, it “doesn’t negatively react to.”
One is developed for grass pollen, using far fewer doses than graduated exposure immunotherapy. Vaccines for dogs and cats are in the works in Switzerland. Animals are increasingly developing allergies along with humans, with a similar anti-vaxx fringe. These could bring them around.
Bee venom immunotherapy out of Australia relies on the “advax adjuvant used to improve flu vaccine efficacy to dramatically speed up immotherapy.” Before covaxxes, flu vaccines were the leading cause of reported injury from inoculations to VAERS. Factor in a worldwide die off of bees and cost benefits don’t pencil out.
Nanoparticles of gluten are being introduced to people with celiac disease to help train the immune system to tolerat it.” Celiac disease is an autoimmune reaction, triggered by wheat and other gluten proteins in grains. Careful attention to diet with diligent stress reduction practices won’t be offered when the needle is waiting.
While all this research is promising, “the process that leads to new treatment is incredibly slow, expensive and arduous. We’re not yet able to cure allergies.” Dr. Marc Rothenberg of Cincinati Children’s Hospital is certain it will spawn future cures. Basic science is the key to scientific progress, but when certain fields of research or conclusions are taboo, less likely.
Her estimates of thirty years from time of discovery until new drugs are approved by the FDA ignore EUA’s approved at Warp Speed. All you need is a great emergency. AIDS was the excuse for the first official bypass of arduous safety experiments. St. Anthony blessed the rapid approval of AZT, killed hundreds of thousands prematurely. Ushered in Remdesivir and covaxxes for this public health emergency, killed millions.
Animal torture and serial killing are the Royal Road to advancement. Like baby birds, allergy researchers chirp for more money, more money. Moonshot Promises, but better allergy treatments remain decades away, while real health care cures quietly.