They're working on ways to deal with severe peanut allergies by exposing children to peanut protein.
This is GREAT NEWS!
(NYPost.com)
A new drug designed to lessen the debilitating and potentially life-threatening effects of exposure to peanuts by children and adults with severe allergies could soon be available.
The breakthrough new clinical trial, whose results were published Sunday, exposed 372 allergic children to small amounts of peanuts that increased over the course of six months.
The result was that 250 kids who were treated were able to digest the equivalent of 600 milligrams or more of peanut protein — roughly two peanuts — without having a reaction. Half of those treated were able to tolerate four peanuts.
The group, who were mostly between the ages of 4 and 17, swallowed capsules filled with peanut powder as part of the oral immunotherapy.
The idea was to treat “an allergy by gradually exposing people to the very same thing they’re allergic to,” lead author Dr. Brian Vickery told CNN.
The findings of the study, dubbed AR101, were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at a conference of the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology in Seattle.
But officials warned against breaking out the peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches just yet.
“It’s not a cure,” said Vickery, director of the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Food Allergy Program. “It does not make the allergy go away.”
Instead, the experimental treatment was aimed at lessening the severe effects that accidental exposure can have.
In the US, an estimated 3 million people are afflicted by peanut or tree nut allergies, which can cause anaphylaxis, hives, vomiting, stomach cramps and shortness of breath.
Link: https://nypost.com/2018/11/18/peanut-allergy-drug
A "vampire" attacked a "werewolf" and now she's in jail.
You can't make this stuff up!
(Odditycentral.com)
A 22-year-old female fan of the hit TV show “The Vampire Diaries” who considered herself the real-life vampire heroine Elena Gilbert was recently sentenced to two and a half years in prison after stabbing a man that she allegedly considered a werewolf.
Ekaterina Tirskaya, a fan of supernatural-themed video games and TV shows, met her unnamed victim on social media, and, after hitting it off online, the two decided to meet up in person as well. The man reportedly asked Ekaterina if she wanted to come to his place for a nightcap. Well the two ended up spending the night together. But things got weird the following morning.
Ekaterina’s victim claims that the 22-year-old woman woke up the next day and out of the blue told him that she was a vampire. He, on the other hand, was an atheist, so he told her that he didn’t believe in the supernatural, and that she should leave. But as he tried to go to the bathroom, the self-confessed vampire grabbed a knife and tried to stab him. The shocked man reportedly managed to grab her arm and wrestle the knife out of her hand, but she quickly grabbed another one and managed to stab him in the chest with it. The man then ran out the door of his apartment and start knocking on his neighbors’ doors while shouting for help.
Ekaterina’s victim survived the stab wound, but has yet to recover mentally. The Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reports that he lost his job, is currently seeing a therapist and often has nightmares about the blonde “vampire” he met on the internet.