From Richard Simpson-Birks
After years of eating and enjoying sufficient quantities of pistachio nuts to be recognised by my friends as an aficionado, at the age of 40 I developed an allergy to them (24 June, p 40). In retrospect I recognise the “tingly, itchy feeling” at the back of the throat described by Anna Gosline. I certainly recognise the subsequent symptoms.
I therefore cannot agree with the hypothesis that childhood was the window of development of the allergy. Neither can I agree that slow build-up of exposure to the nuts can in any way inure me to their potentially lethal effects. I had already been eating more than enough for many years when the allergy hit me.
Clermont-l'Hérault, France
