Are GMOs cause of recent spike in food allergies?

Andrew Porterfield | February 22, 2016 | Genetic Literacy Project

Over the last 30 years, reported cases of food allergies — especially in young children — have gone up.  According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, today about 4 percent of children under 18 have some kind of food or digestive allergy. That number represents an increase of 18 percent for all food allergies among children between 1997 and 2007.

For some foods, the increase has been even greater. For example, peanut allergy prevalence has quadrupled from 0.4 percent in 1997 to more than 2 percent in 2010. In fact, peanut allergy is now the leading cause of anaphylactic shock — the most severe form of allergy — due to food in the United States. And the problem isn’t just confined to America: hospital admissions for food-related anaphylaxis has seen a seven-fold rise in the United Kingdom since 1990......However, of the foods that most frequently cause food allergy, GM versions simply don’t exist......no studies have found heightened intrinsic allergenicity when compared with non-biotech equivalents.....

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