What We're Reading: Food Allergy Prevalence; Right to Try Law; State Variation in Fertility Rates

More Americans Say They Have Allergies Than Actually Have Them

While 1 in 5 Americans say they have a food allergy, many of them probably don’t, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open. Researchers surveyed over 40,000 adults and found that, although 19% of adults reported a food allergy, estimated food allergy prevalence among US adults is actually 10.8%, corresponding with more than 26 million adults. The most common allergy was shellfish, followed by milk, peanuts, tree nuts, fin fish, eggs, wheat, soy, and sesame.

First Patient Treated Under Right to Try Law

Fertility Rates Vary Greatly by State

A patient with an aggressive form of brain cancer has become the first patient in the United States to receive experimental treatment under the Right to Try law of 2017. After failing to qualify for clinical trial enrollment, the patient started receiving the experimental treatment ERC-1671 at the University of California, Irvine in November 2018, reported RAPS. The treatment is in phase 2 clinical trials.As the birthrate in the United States continues to decline, a new look at federal data has found significant variation in fertility rates around the country. States in the Midwest and Southeast have higher rates of fertility compared with the Northeast and West Coast. According to The Wall Street Journal, in 2017, there was a 57% difference between the highest state rate (South Dakota, 2227 births) and the lowest (District of Columbia, 1421 births). Hispanic women had the highest fertility rate of the ethnicities studied.