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8A Monday, March 16, 2009
T HE D AILY C ITIZEN
O BITUARIES
• Alaysha Nicole Irie
Ford, Dalton
• Eva Messer,Dalton
• Edith McLaurin Owens,
Rocky Face
Obituary notices are
posted online at
www.daltondailycitizen.com
Alaysha Nicole
Irie Ford
Little Alaysha Nicole Irie
Ford, infant daughter of
Whitney Nicole McClure
and Donnye Ford Jr., of
Dalton, Ga., departed this
life Wednesday, March 11,
2009.
She is also survived by
her grandparents, Alvin and
Twana McClure of Rocky
Face, Ga., Eyvette Roberts
of Rockmart, Ga.; greatgrandparents,
John and
Brenda Brooks of Tunnel
Hill, Ga.; brothers, J’dun
Hill and Kidron Ford;
uncles, Tyler McClure of
Rocky Face, Ga.,Trika Ford,
Kelsey Roberts of Rockmart,
Ga., several other aunts,
uncles and cousins.
Services will be today at
11 a.m. at the Melrose
Chapel of Ponders Funeral
Home with the Rev. Clyde
Painter officiating. Interment
will follow in the United
Memorial Gardens.
The family will receive
friends at the funeral home
from 10 until 11 a.m. today.
Arrangements by locally
owned and operated Ponders
Funeral Home, 138 Melrose
Drive, Dalton. (706) 226-
4002. Your selected independent
funeral home.
www.legacy.com
Eva Messer
Mrs. Eva Messer, of
Dalton, died Sunday, March
15, 2009.
Survivors and arrangements
will be announced
later by Love Funeral Home,
1402 N. Thornton Ave.,
Dalton.
www.legacy.com
Love
Funeral Home
Family Owned Since 1935
278-3313
Edith McLaurin
Owens
Mrs. Edith McLaurin
Owens, 76, of Rocky Face
and formerly of North
Carolina, passed away
Friday, March 13, 2009, at
Hamilton Medical Center in
Dalton.
She was the daughter of
the late Baxter and Garphelia
Stubbs.
McLaurin and was preceded
in death by her three
brothers.
Edith was an active member
of the Dug Gap Baptist
Church.
She is survived by her
loving husband of 57 years,
William Owens of Dalton;
children and their spouses,
Lynn (Randy) Owens
Cochran of Kernersville,
N.C.; Hugh (Melanie)
Owens of Rossville and
Kenneth Owens of
Ringgold; sisters, Betty
Axsom, Dee Caudle and
Barbara Owens all of North
Carolina; brother, J.R.
Mclaurin of North Carolina;
six grandchildren and eight
great-grandchildren; nieces
and nephews.
Services will be Monday
at 11 a.m. from Dug Gap
Baptist Church in Dalton
with the Rev. Bob Bagley
officiating.
Burial will be in Pinecrest
Cemetery in Gibson, N.C.
The family will receive
friends at Love Funeral
Home today from 5 to 8
p.m.
In lieu of flowers, memorials
may be made to the
American Cancer Society,
300 W. Emery St.,Suite 106,
Dalton, GA 30720 or to the
Dug Gap Baptist Church,
2301 Dug Gap Riad, Dalton,
GA 30720.
Words of comfort may be
sent to the family at
www.lovefuneralhomega.com.
Love Funeral Home,
1402 N. Thornton Ave.,
Dalton (across from
Hamilton Medical Center) is
in charge of arrangements.
www.legacy.com
Love
Funeral Home
Family Owned Since 1935
278-3313
Taking a bite out of peanut allergies
WASHINGTON (AP) —
Scientists have the first evidence
that life-threatening
peanut allergies may be
cured one day.
A few children now are
allergy-free thanks to a scary
treatment — tiny amounts of
the very food that endangered
them.
Don’t try this at home.
Doctors monitored the
youngsters closely in case
the patients needed rescue,
and there is no way to dice a
peanut as small as the treatment
doses required.
But over several years,the
children’s bodies learned to
tolerate peanuts. Immunesystem
tests show no sign of
remaining allergy in five
youngsters, and others can
withstand amounts that once
would have left them wheezing
or worse, scientists
reported Sunday.
Are the five cured?
Doctors at Duke University
Medical Center and
Arkansas Children’s
Hospital must track them
years longer to be sure.
“We’re optimistic that
they have lost their peanut
allergy,” said the lead
researcher, Dr. Wesley
Burks, Duke’s allergy chief.
“We’ve not seen this before
medically. We’ll have to see
what happens to them.”
More rigorous research is
under way to confirm the
pilot study, released Sunday
at a meeting of the American
Academy of Allergy,Asthma
and Immunology. If it pans
out,the approach could mark
a major advance for an allergy
that afflicts 1.8 million
people in the United States.
For parents of these little
allergy pioneers, that means
no more fear that something
as simple as sharing a
friend’s cookie at school
could mean a race to the
emergency room.
“It’s such a burden lifted
off your shoulder to realize
you don’t have to worry
about your child eating a
peanut and ending up really
sick,” said Rhonda Cassada
of Hillsborough, North
Dr. Wesley Burks MD, left, speaks with 4-year-old Ashlyn Chadwick and her
mother Karen about Ashlyn’s peanut allergies during a clinic at the Duke South
Clinic at Duke University in Durham, N.C., March 10. Medical student Sean
Prater looks on along with Dr. Edwin Kim, center.
Carolina. Her 7-year-old son,
Ryan, has been labeled allergy-free
for two years and
counting.
It’s a big change for a
child who could not tolerate
one-sixth of a peanut when
he entered the study at age 2
1/2. By 5, Ryan could eat a
whopping 15 peanuts at a
time with no sign of a reaction.
Not that Ryan grew to like
peanuts. “They smell bad,”
he said matter-of-factly.
Millions of people have
food allergies and peanut
allergy is considered the
most dangerous, with lifethreatening
reactions possible
from trace amounts. It
accounts for most of the
30,000 emergency-room visits
and up to 200 deaths
attributed to food allergies
each year. Although some
children outgrow peanut
allergy,that’s rare among the
severely affected.
There’s no way to avoid a
reaction other than avoiding
peanuts. Those allergy shots
that help people allergic to
pollen and other environmental
triggers reduce or
eliminate symptoms — by
getting used to small
amounts of the allergen —
are too risky for food allergies.
Enter oral immunotherapy.
Twenty-nine severely
allergic children spent a day
in the hospital swallowing
minuscule but slowly
increasing doses of a specially
prepared peanut flour,
until they had a reaction. The
child went home with a daily
dose just under that reactive
amount, usually equivalent
to one-thousandth of a
peanut.
After eight months to 10
months of gradual dose
increases, most can eat the
peanut-flour equivalent of 15
peanuts daily, said Burks,
who two years ago began
reporting these signs of
desensitization as long as
children took their daily
medicine.
Sunday’s report goes the
next big step.
Nine children who had
taken daily therapy for 2 1/2
years were given a series of
peanut challenges. Four in
the initial study report — and
a fifth who finished testing
last week — could stop treatment
and avoid peanuts for
an entire month and still
have no reaction the next
time they ate 15 whole
peanuts. Immune-system
changes suggest they are
truly allergy-free, Burks
said.
Scientists call that tolerance
— meaning their
immune systems did not forget
and go bad again — and
it is a first for food allergy
treatment, said Dr. Marshall
Plaut of the National
Institutes of Health.
The treatment remains
experimental, Burks
stressed,although he hopes it
will be ready for prime time
in a few years.
He is not taking chances
with the first five allergy-free
kids. They are under orders
to eat the equivalent of a
tablespoon of peanut butter a
day to keep their bodies used
to the allergen.
On the Net:
American Academy of
Allergy, Asthma and
Immunology:
www.aaaai.org
F a t cat
AP FILE PHOTO
Turnersville resident
Donna Damiani, center,
and her children
Melissa, left, 12, and
Vince, 17, hold the cat
named “Prince Chunk,”
at their home in
Washington Township,
N.J. in August of 2008.
The Damiani family
finalized the paperwork
for the cat’s adoption in
February 2009, though
they’ve been caring for
the cat since Summer
2009. The cat was rescued
by the Damiani
family when his previous
owner was struggling
financially.
How much fat?
Bill would require chain
restaurants to post fat,
calorie intake totals
B Y I SAAC W OLF
Scripps Howard News
Just how bad for you is
that double-cheeseburger?
Soon, the gut-busting
details could be staring you
in the face.
Lawmakers introduced a
bill this week requiring
chain restaurants with 20 or
more locations to post
nutrition information in
plain sight, following an
E.W. Scripps media investigation.
With the obesity rate
hovering at 60 percent of
the adult U.S. population,
the Labeling Education
and Nutrition (LEAN) Act
is meant to help diners
make better-informed
choices when eating out.
The measure calls for calories
to be posted on or near
menus and menu boards. It
allows for flexibility, so
that fast-food restaurants
and sit-down eateries can
post the information differently.
The legislation comes
after a 2008 Scripps investigation
found that popular
chain restaurants touted
“healthy” dishes that actually
contained more calories
and fat than the eateries
claimed.
Dishes targeted to
health-conscious consumers
at chains including
Chili’s, Taco Bell and
Applebee’s contained as
much as twice the calories
and eight times the grams
of fat than the restaurants
claimed in their nutrition
information.
While mandating that
chains provide information,
the new legislation would
also protect chains if they
display incorrect information.
“The bill aims to provide
the nutrition information
that is important to
consumers, and is clear and
concise while at the same
time protecting restaurants,”
said David French,
of the International
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Franchise Association.
“People prepare these
meals, not robots.”
Introduced with bipartisan
support in both the U.S.
Senate and House, the bill
would give the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration
oversight of restaurant
nutrition labeling. The
sponsors are Sens. Tom
Carper, D-Del., and Lisa
Murkowski, R-Alaska, and
Reps. Jim Matheson, D-
Utah, and Fred Upton, R-
Mich.
But don’t expect to see
new nutrition information
signs quickly: The bill
gives up to two years from
the time its passage for federal
officials to develop
rules about the nutrition
labeling.
While calorie information
would be posted on or
near menus or menu
boards, information about
other nutrients, like sugar
and sodium, would be
available.
“Healthy nutrition and
obesity are national concerns
that cry for national
attention,” Carper said.
“Our job is to give consumers
the tools they need
to make smart choices in
their everyday lives.”
While nutrition information
is mandatory for packaged
foods, there’s no federal
rule on nutrition information
for restaurants.
Instead, municipalities
scattered from New York
City to Seattle’s King
County require nutrition
specifics posted at certain
types of restaurants. The
bill would provide a unified
reporting standard.
“There’s a patchwork of
standards across states and
localities,” said Matheson
spokesman Alyson
Heyrend. “It creates a
national standard for
restaurants.”
The National Restaurant
Association also cited the
current patchwork of rules
in its endorsement of the
bill.
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