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| |  Kids With Dermatitis May Be Allergic To Cows LONDON -- July 11, 1997 -- Some children with atopic (allergic) dermatitis are allergic to cow’s milk and get better when this is excluded from their diet. Dr. Szczepanski and Professor von Mahlendahl from Osnabrack, Germany, report, in a Research Letter to this week’s The Lancet, five children who were allergic to cows. The first patient was a 10-month-old boy who was admitted to hospital with severe atopic dermatitis and breathlessness. He improved in hospital but a few days after he was taken home, his grandfather came in from the cowshed in his working clothes and cuddled him. The baby started coughing, became very breathless, and came out in a rash. He was readmitted to hospital as an emergency. Investigations showed that he was allergic to cow dander the scales of skin and bits of hair that all animals shed. Tests suggested that he was also allergic to cow’s milk, but excluding milk from his diet did not help and when he was last seen, at the age of 25 months, he was drinking milk without any ill effects. Allergy to cow dander is known to be a cause of asthma in farm workers, but has not been reported before as a cause of atopic dermatitis. After his experience with this patient, the doctors looked for allergy to cows in other children who came to the clinic with atopic dermatitis and soon found four more with allergy to cows. The parents of two of them were cattle farmers, and of the other two, a parent was a veterinary surgeon. "It is important to consider cow dander as a possible cause of atopic dermatitis in children; the elimination of this allergen can be helpful," the authors conclude.
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