Clinic wants to tinker with peanuts

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Unlike typical 11-year-olds, Travis Gray avoids candy bars and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

His friends serve as food-tasters at parties, making sure sweets and treats don't contain peanuts, which could threaten his life if he ate one. His mother scans restaurant menus ruthlessly for any hint of peanuts.

"He's been sick and he knows how bad it feels," said his mother, Shirley.

Travis has a harsh allergy to peanuts and carries a medicine kit with him everywhere he goes, in case he accidentally crosses a peanut's path and has a reaction.

Mrs. Gray, frustrated with pediatricians and health workers convinced that Travis didn't have a food allergy, went to Dr. Wesley Burks at Arkansas Children's Hospital's food allergy clinic. The clinic wants to one day tinker with a peanut to identify and eliminate the protein that triggers allergic reactions.

Burks says that, someday, there might be peanut-based products safe for people with allergies.

His colleague, Dr. Rick Helm, says it becomes problematic because altering the proteins also alters the plant. The challenge is to maintain the plant's nutrients -- and taste -- but alter the plant's makeup to make it safe for allergy sufferers.

Helm wants to come up with a consumable product that people will want to eat.

"Hopefully as a group we can identify strains that will be less allergenic to those people," Helm said.

Affects everyday life

Burks wants to help families live a more normal life.

"The biggest thing for parents is the anxiety of trying to make sure their child doesn't come into contact with something that would cause a reaction," he said.

Gray says her son's allergy affects how they live every day.

"He skips all the little bars of candy on Halloween," she said. "His brother loves it. Travis gets the Skittles and everybody else in the family gets the chocolate."

Travis has to carry an asthma inhaler with him and straps a shot in a small case to his belt every day in case he has a reaction.

"I worry, especially now because he's 11 and he wants more freedom and doesn't want me looking over everything," she said. "But he's responsible."

Travis says it can be a pain to have to watch everything he eats and carry the medications around, but he's used to it and is able to tell when he's having a reaction.

Burks treats about 200 patients for peanut allergies from across the South. The clinic has about 500 patients who are allergic to milk, eggs, fish, wheat and soybeans.

Researchers at the clinic receive funding from the federal government and from private companies interested in marketing their findings.

Burks said he hopes to produce a prototype in one to two years.