Gut microbiome, microbial, and immune system refer to the same organism (your gut and the bacteria in it).
Thirty-three million Americans have food allergies (FAs). This is one in ten adults, and one in thirteen children. An allergy to something occurs when your body’s natural defenses overreact to exposure from a certain source, treating it as an invader and sending chemicals to defend against it. Allergic reactions may range from simple hives on one’s cheek, to passing away in merely ten minutes because they ingested something which grazed their allergen (anaphylaxis). Food allergies are dangerous, and though science around them has developed in the past half century, the prevalence of them has grown beyond belief. This epidemic plagues 40% percent of children globally, and the amount of citizens affected has accelerated dramatically in the recent decades by 50% from 1997 to 2011, then up by 50% again between 2007 and 2021. The cause of food allergies is not widely agreed upon, and the upsurge in them is credited to multiple factors, but not confidently attributed to one. Through research in medical databases to studies done by hospitals, a clear cause arises; the rampant growth in vaccination and the consequential to the rise in FAs.
Causes of a Food Allergy
As previously stated, the cause of food allergies is not concretely known, but there are different factors that possibly contribute to gaining an allergy. The core of each person’s ability to fight a virus begins in the immune system, more specifically, the gut microbiome. The amount of bacteria one is exposed to (through environment, food, or medicine) affects the body’s ability to maintain a strong and stable immune system, and with less or disrupted bacteria, it is compromised. Another factor which links to cause in FA is vitamin D deficiency; by not receiving enough vitamin D, the body is not receiving the nutrients it needs; weakening the immune system. One factor that is relatively sound and agreed upon is the food a child is exposed to during the first six months of life. If they are not exposed to common allergens (ex. peanuts), the child is more likely to develop an allergen to them, as he is not exposed to that bacteria early in his life, and his body is not acquainted with the food from a young age, making it more unusual as the body is later exposed to new bacteria. This explains the difference in food allergies across different cultures, as the food they are exposed to during infancy varies. Though none of these factors can fully take credit for food allergies, most medical databases agree, “Microbial diversity is a central key in protecting against food allergies and asthma.”
The Food Allergy Epidemic
Keeping in mind that microbial diversity is important, it becomes easier to understand the possible factors to the epidemic with deeper understanding. The Hygiene Hypothesis explains the rise is caused by our world becoming more clean and sterile. In recent years, there has been less exposure to healthy bacteria as young children (and most other people) now live primarily indoors. Living indoors also results in receiving less vitamin D; hence the previous factor discussed. The bacteria and nutrients become scarce, and our microbial systems have not had enough time to evolve and keep up with this shift in environments, as it has happened so quickly, which results in a less efficient immune system. The fast food epidemic is another underlying factor in the epidemic. So much of the average American’s diet is highly processed food, and the chemicals in the food are extremely disruptive to our bodies, for example, glyphosate. Glyphosate is a pest resistant (also known as roundup), and is used on many crops. The company in charge of distributing roundup (Monsanto) has faced hundreds of thousands of lawsuits against them for health defects, such as cancer. All of these aspects link back to the original cause, the lack of enough bacteria (or disrupted bacteria) in our gut microbiomes, is contributing to the FA epidemic. The previous components and causes mentioned all have sources supporting them, but one specific factor was extremely catching while researching and examining sources, and even more interesting, the prominent association between it and FAs.
Vaccines and Food Allergies
According to epidemiology professors from Jackson State, “The era of food allergy is the same faction that received vaccines.” As FAs skyrocketed, so did one other thing; required vaccines. Researching this fascinating connection is challenging, using government funded resources or mainstream media is much different than utilizing independent medical studies. Government funded organizations tend to purposely disacknowledge the link between the vaccines and FAs. For example, the National Institute of Health (NIH) stated while summarizing an experiment (examining the link between vaccines and FAs) that, “It is too difficult to obtain numbers adequate to examine the effects of vaccination,”, and they go on to claim that there is no correlation between the two.
On the contrary, an independent study done by the previously mentioned epidemiological professors from Jackson State point out that awareness of association regarding vaccines and allergy has been existent since the early 20th century. The study examined the effects of vaccines on allergic rhinitis (common seasonal allergies). There were two groups: vaccinated individuals and unvaccinated individuals. 10.4% had worsened rhinitis, versus a 0.4%; the group vaccinated had amplified symptoms of nearly ten times versus the non-vaccinated group. The study also touches on how the aluminum in the needles causes bystander effects, (as aluminum is an immune stimulating agent) and these effects nearly always result in an allergy.
Following that, an article by the Children’s Health Defense (another non-governmental organization) speaks on the vaccination epidemic, highlighting the abrupt and massive expansion of childhood vaccine schedule, with vaccination more than quadrupling in the past forty years, with only four vaccines in 1980, to more than twenty-five in 2024. As well as this expansion, there have been changes in vaccine technology, such as production of genetically engineered and conjugate vaccines, which both alter immunologic memory and non-antibody immune response. As well, there have been expansion of aluminum adjuvants, which invoke a stronger immune response, causing microbial dysregulation.
According to HCA Houston Healthcare, John Hopkins Medicine, Mayo Clinic, and countless other sources, food allergies and the gut microbiome are linked; and these vaccines (and other medicines) are contributing to the epidemic.
Conclusion
Food allergies are nearly unavoidable in a society, vaccinated or not, not all immune systems can be perfectly functioning. The goal of this paper is to enlighten the reader on the disruptions vaccines cause, and how this aligns with FAs. As Schweiger Dermatology Group puts it, “By fostering collaboration and understanding, we can better protect our children and reduce the burden of food allergies in the years to come.” Children all around the world live with heightened anxiety due to FAs, and as a community, (and a democracy) investing time into learning about food allergies is wise, rather than investing billions of dollars into vaccines and new medicines. Vaccines cost families $25 billion dollars per year, and the American/global public deserve better than ignorance.
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