Why are food allergies on the rise?
By: Elizabeth Landau, CNN
- Children's Hospital Boston has seen an increase in ER visits from allergic reactions to foods
- A study speculates gut bacteria has something to do with food allergies
- Another idea is that children need to get exposed to common allergens earlier in life
(CNN) -- Two-year-old Ethan Wily had a cold recently, so at first it wasn't surprising that he started coughing last week after eating some pistachio gelato.
But he started coughing up mucus, and then gasping for air. His parents gave him an antihistamine, but it didn't stop the reaction. By the time the boy's parents brought him to their local hospital, he could barely breathe.
"His face was really swollen. He looked like an alien," said Ethan's father, Preston Wily of Lehi, Utah. "We didn't have any idea an allergy could be so bad."
He said the child had shown only a somewhat mild reaction to peanuts before this.
It seems like more and more children in the U.S. are developing food allergies, and there's data to back that up. The number of kids with food allergies went up 18 percent from 1997 to 2007, according to the U.S.
TAHOE CITY, Calif. — A chemical reaction was the probable cause for a cloud of noxious vapors Thursday morning at Tahoe Lake Elementary School that eventually led to the school being shut down prior to students arriving to campus, officials confirmed.
Environmental and health concerns have spurred increasingly stringent regulatory requirements for the use and disposal of Cadmium based pigments. As a result, many industries have decreased or entirely eliminated the utilization of these colorants. If these trends continue, formulating cadmium pigment into artist paints will become increasingly difficult, and ultimately, may be impossible due to lack of availability. However, the introduction of newer organic pigments has made finding suitable alternatives easier than ever. While not identical to cadmium based pigments, their properties are similar enough in some respects, and superior enough in others, to warrant consideration. Golden Artist Colors, Inc. has recently introduced three such colors; Hansa Yellow Opaque, Pyrrole Red Light, and Pyrrole Orange. Also in this group is Pyrrole Red, which was first made available by GOLDEN in 1990. 
The day Sheharbano “Sheri” Sangji, a 23-year-old technician at the University of California, Los Angeles, undertook what would be her last task, she wore a sweatshirt and no lab coat. That late December afternoon in 2008, she started working with a liquid called t-butyl lithium. The chemical requires careful handling, because as a pyrophoric, it catches fire when exposed to air. But equipment malfunctioned, and the fluid spilled, setting the synthetic fibers of her clothing ablaze. Two postdocs ran to help douse the fire engulfing Sangji, but they failed to get her to the nearby shower. Emergency personnel raced to the scene, but they arrived too late. She spent 18 days in a hospital burn unit before she died.
BOONE—We all know what happens when you mix baking soda and vinegar, or drop Mentos candy in a carbonated drink – a chemical reaction that’s fun to watch, but messy to clean up.
