Parents of kids with food allergies know a type of terror that most haven't experienced. Watching your bundle o' joy turn beet red, stop breathing and, probably, convulse is a sight it's hard to get past. And you start to organize your life so that you never have to see it again.
Lafayette, Colorado's Robyn O'Brien knows that fear. When her youngest developed an allergy to eggs, O'Brien leapt into action, marketing products, speaking out about food allergies and writing a book.
Which is great. Nothing like a little grassroots activism to spur more research into this potentially fatal condition.
But -- how far is too far? O'Brien's site, in addition to selling allergy-branded items like sticker and lunchsacks, goes one step further, linking diverse conditions like autism, ADHD and allergies to food and vaccines.
These connections offer hope to many parents looking for solutions but appear to be based on anecdotal research rather than actual scientific data. And some of it -- like O'Brien's assertions about Celiac Disease (her claim is that it's a wheat allergy) -- are just plain inaccurate.
Still, it's hard to toss out the public awareness baby with the nebulous information bathwater. O'Brien's motivations appear born of a desire to inform people about a serious problem but at times her execution raises more questions than it answers.
