FishRook
For as long as Mountain View teen Dean Wu can remember, he’s faced severe food allergies.
“When I was really young, my food allergies were so severe that I couldn’t eat out or travel,” 16-year-old Wu said. “If someone had eaten peanut butter and then not washed their hands and rubbed their hands on a surface, with me being super young, if I touched that surface and then put my fingers in my mouth I would have to go to the hospital.”
But in third grade, Wu’s life changed when he got to participate in a food allergy trial at the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research at Stanford University.
“The trial tested this drug that would help desensitize people to their allergens,” Wu said. “At the end of the trial, I built up tolerance to the point where I could have three to four peanuts, walnuts, almonds and pecans, and then drink a little bit of milk.”
Before the trial, Wu always had to be within close proximity to a hospital in case something went wrong,…
