A ‘Peanut Pill’ Could Be The Treatment for Peanut Allergy Sufferers

As a mom to a child with a severe peanut-allergy, I cannot tell you how much I want to see a cure or treatment for this scary, life-threatening disease (yes, they are considering allergic diseases).  You don’t realize how many foods are made with or come in contact with peanuts until every single day your child’s life depends on you knowing about it. That is why when I hear about possible treatments for those with peanut allergies, I have to take notice because it could be the thing that saves my child’s life one day. With that being said, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) announced recently that they are one-step closer to approving a ‘Peanut Pill’ that could be a treatment to reduce the risk of allergy for peanuts. The drug is aimed at 4 – 17 year old children.

An advisory committee for the FDA voted on Friday to recommend a peanut allergy treatment for FDA approval.

The drug is called Palforzia and made by Aimmune Therapeutics. If approved, it would be the first FDA-approved drug for treating food allergies specifically, peanut allergies.

Palforzia is a type of oral immunotherapy. The treatment involves exposing children with peanut allergies to increasing doses of peanut protein, in order to build up tolerance over time. The goal of the treatment is not to get rid of a peanut allergy entirely, but to reduce a person’s risk of severe reactions in case of accidental exposures. (Source)

The idea is that, a person with a peanut allergy wouldn’t have to live being scared to eat all the time. They’d be able to consume small amounts of the allergen, in this case, peanuts without having a life-threatening reaction.  So, if my son was at a friends and accidentally ate a peanut, he wouldn’t suffer an anaphylactic reaction which is by far one of my greatest fears. Honestly, this isn’t the first time I have heard about this sort of treatment but it is the first time I’ve heard we are this close to getting something approved by the FDA. My son’s allergist told us about a patch that was showing promising results in the trials and we are currently on the waitlist for it once it becomes approved. I’ve been anxiously waiting for this day ever since we found out he had a peanut allergy when he was 6 months old. So, if you are a parent of a child with a peanut allergy or someone that has an allergy to the nut, you should know that hope is coming and it might be sooner than we expect.