“Dr. Hugh Sampson, the director of the Jae Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York and Dr. Scott Sicherer, a paediatric allergist who is also at Mount Sinai, have conducted extensive studies throughout the United States that show that the rate of allergy is rising sharply. Sampson estimates that three to five per cent of the population is allergic to milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, or seafood. This increase in the incidence of food allergy is real, Sampson said. He cannot say what is causing the increase, but he now thinks the conventional approach to preventing food allergies is misconceived. For most of his career, he believed, like most allergists, that children are far less likely to become allergic to problematic foods if they are not exposed to them as infants. But now Sampson and other specialists believe that early exposure may actually help prevent food allergies.”