The latest advice is the exact opposite of that in the column.
Presumably this is the column in question: Are Peanut Allergies For Real?
Science marches onward.
Allergies are a dysfunction of the immune system. A properly functioning immune system is not fully understood, much less a malfunctioning one. Over exposure is a risk factor, apparently we now find complete avoidance is also a risk factor.
Keep in mind, in the study the subjects were exposed to a relatively low amount of peanut protein in a controlled fashion. That’s different than random doses at random times.
The other thing to keep in mind is that in many of these desensitization treatments it’s not, strictly speaking, a complete cure but rather an increased tolerance. While some allergies can cause near instantaneous and severe reactions from a minute amount of a substance, more common seems to be a critical threshold to get a reaction. There are people who can tolerate trace amounts of a substance without going into shock, but who will also get sick in one way or another from a large amount of it.
The “cures” described in these treatments are not to allow allergic children to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, it’s to protect them from accidental encounters with trace amounts, such as you would get from cross-contamination of a cooking or eating utensil.
Frankly, as one of the small minority who does suffer from authentic and documented food allergies I would love to undergo treatment to reduce my sensitivity even somewhat to something like tomatoes, which have twice landed me in the ER with pretty damn scary reactions, not so I can eat them but just so eating outside of my own kitchen is less of a nightmare and stress. Also, so I stop breaking out into a poison-ivy like rash if I just happen to touch the damn plants or get some juice spilled on my arm. Not that that happens very often, I’m very careful, but it would be nice not to be so very paranoid about a common food. Imagine every bit of tomato sauce is boiling lava, every bit of ketchup flesh-dissolving acid, and imagine living in a world where everyone else is immune to the lava and acid and thus doesn’t care about leaving highly dangerous stuff all around, that you could stumble into without warning and leave your severely injured, taking weeks or even months to recover fully, or dead. That’s the world I live in. That’s the world everyone with a severe food allergy to a common food lives in. People around you going “But I LOVE the taste of hot lava with boiling acid! Here, don’t you want some?” as they approach you with something that could melt your face and stop your breathing, and you’re scrabbling backwards to avoid death and destruction. Careless manufacturers contaminate products with lava and acid and no one cares, because to them it’s healthy, or at least harmless.
Same thing for peanuts - they’re all over the damn place. Everywhere. Not just in food but also cosmetics and soaps and Og knows what else. Or wheat. Or a lot of other things. Really sucks to be allergic.
Mushrooms … with the whole umami thing, mushrooms and mushroom powder ends up in all sorts of things to ‘boost the umami…’ and potentially throw me into anaphylaxis. Thank Ghu I carry epi-pens.