Month: March 2018

Critics concerned Pruitt could limit the type of science EPA can cite

ABC News

Critics concerned Pruitt could limit the type of science EPA can cite

By Stephanie Ebbs     March 27, 2018

                                                                                        EPA plans to roll back major Obama-era climate rule

The former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and other critics say they worry EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is considering a rule change that would require researchers to make more of their methodology and raw data public — a move which could impact regulations intended to limit pollution, among other consequences.

Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy wrote that the move would “paralyze” the agency in an op-ed in The New York Times.

“This approach would undermine the nation’s scientific credibility. And should Mr. Pruitt reconsider regulations now in place, this new policy could be a catalyst for the unraveling of existing public health protections if the studies used to justify them could no longer be used by EPA,” McCarthy and Janet McCabe, a former administrator in the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times.

David Doniger, senior strategic director for the climate and clean energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that the main target of this policy is a set of studies that began in the 1990s and were cited as the basis for public health standards like regulations of soot and other tiny particles of pollution that are linked to respiratory issues like asthma.

He said the administration wants to disqualify that research.

“This is diabolical because if Pruitt follows through he would toss out this body of work because the patient records weren’t made totally public so that your health status and your personal experience and all that for 20,000 or more people could be pored over by industry hacks and people wouldn’t participate in these studies,” Doniger said in an interview with ABC News.

Critics say a new policy requiring raw data to be completely public could threaten rules intended to protect public health because they rely on research that involves summarizing individuals’ personal medical information. In those studies, scientists followed individuals for years on the condition that none of the personal health information would be shared. E&E News first reported last week that Pruitt was working on the plan and discussed it in a meeting at the Heritage Foundation.

But the EPA says those characterizations are too narrow and that Pruitt is looking more broadly at how to make the science cited by the agency more transparent. They said there has not been any announcement or change in policy at this time.

“Administrator Pruitt believes that Americans deserve transparency, with regard to the science and data that’s underpinning regulatory decisions being made by this Agency,” EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said in a statement.

Pruitt’s goal is similar to what House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, proposed in his Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act of 2017, nicknamed the HONEST Act. That bill would have blocked the EPA from crafting any rule unless all scientific and technical information was available to the public “in a manner sufficient for independent analysis and substantial reproduction of research results.”

Scott J. Ferrell/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images, FILE. Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, listens during the House Judiciary hearing on medical liability issues.

That bill passed the House in 2017 but was blocked in a Senate committee.

EPA documents, including Pruitt’s schedules recently obtained by ABC News through a Freedom of Information Act request, show that he met with Smith on April 5 of last year and that the topics for discussion included the agency’s scientific advisory boards and the HONEST Act.

The EPA said that the HONEST Act has the same goal of transparency Pruitt is looking into but did not offer specifics about conversations between Smith and Pruitt.

Smith’s spokespeople did not respond to ABC News’ question about whether he requested the policy change.

EPA blocks some scientists from serving on advisory boards

Smith has been a vocal critic of existing climate science and said in a statement that the HONEST Act would allow the public to independently determine whether data supports the EPA’s conclusions.

“Administrator Pruitt feels strongly that Americans deserve to see the underlying data, and the American people will appreciate his efforts to make sure regulations are based on good science, not science fiction,” Smith said in a statement.

Virginia Rep. Don Beyer, the co-ranking Democrat on the House Science Committee, criticized statements that Pruitt wanted to increase transparency on Twitter:

Rep. Don Beyer: Pruitt’s new desire for “transparency” is bogus.
Pruitt runs the EPA with profound secrecy to prevent the public from uncovering his waste of taxpayer funds and frequent talks with polluters about how to undermine public health safeguards.

This is about attacking science. Again https://twitter.com/LFFriedman/status/978402524196687872 …

And a representative of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists tweeted last week that the proposal is a “trojan horse” to restrict science at the agency:

Yogin Kothari: @EPAScottPruitt “secret science” plan would sever the @EPA’s ability to rely on science in making public health and environmental decisions. It’s a Trojan Horse with the intention of replacing science with politics https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/scott-pruitt-will-restrict-epas-use-of-legitimate-science/ …      See Yogin Kothari’s other Tweets

One of the biggest points of concern with the proposal is that a lot of regulations intended to limit pollution like smog are based on public health research that relies heavily on summarized data based on personal health information.

The HONEST Act would have required that public datasets redact personal information. The EPA has not yet released details of any upcoming policy change.

A cost-benefit analysis of the Clean Air Act, for example, cites research that reducing particulate matter could prevent 230,000 premature deaths in the year 2020.

Another study on the EPA’s website found that reducing greenhouse gas emissions could prevent between 1.4 million and 3 million premature deaths in the year 2100.

Supporters of Smith’s bill and moves to increase access to data cited by EPA say that they question some of those findings and want researchers to provide more of the raw data so anyone can try to replicate the conclusions.

Steve Milloy, who served on Trump’s EPA transition team and is a vocal critic of what he calls “junk science,” wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that there were questions about the original research the EPA used to regulate particulate matter and that an analysis of public health data released by the state of California found that particulate matter was not associated with death.

“The best part is that if you don’t believe the result, you can get the same data for yourself from California and run your own analysis. Then we’ll compare, contrast and debate. That’s how science is supposed to work,” Milloy wrote in the op-ed tweeted out by an EPA spokesperson.

McCarthy and McCabe also wrote that any limits on the use of these kinds of public health studies at EPA could also impact rulemaking at other agencies that rely on health-related research, including the effectiveness of pharmaceuticals.

“The E.P.A. administrator simply can’t make determinations on what science is appropriate in rule-making without calling into question decisions by other federal agencies based on similar kinds of studies, including on the safety and efficacy of pharmaceuticals, and research into cancer and other diseases. All rely to some extent on data from individual health records. If one agency rejects studies based on that sort of data, it could open up policies by other agencies based on similar studies to challenge,” they wrote.

Pruitt previously announced that scientists who receive any grant money from the EPA would not be able to serve on committees intended to advise the agency on scientific questions, a move that he said would increase transparency on possible conflicts of interest.

Republicans now want to balance the federal budget after passing $1 trillion tax cut

ThinkProgress

Republicans now want to balance the federal budget after passing $1 trillion tax cut

It’s all for show.

Rebekah Entralgo     March 28, 2018

Republicans propose a balanced budget amendment after voting for trillion dollar legislation. Credit: Alex Edelman-Pool/Getty Images.

Congressional Republicans are planning to push a balanced budget amendment when they return from recess in April, Politico reported on Wednesday. The vote comes directly after many of those same Republicans voted to pass two massively expensive measures, a $1.3 trillion dollar spending bill and a $1 trillion dollar tax cut that primarily benefits the wealthiest Americans.

The attempt at a balanced budget amendment is mostly a shiny gimmick meant to gin up support for Republicans as they approach the 2018 midterm elections. The tax bill is largely unpopular with Americans and very few have actually seen any change in their paychecks, contrary to what President Donald Trump and other Republicans promised.

“It’s almost election season, and it would be helpful if GOP lawmakers could go home and be able to say they voted to support balancing the federal budget, even though they voted boosted discretionary spending by a ton, and have not touched entitlement spending, which, they have said for years, is the driver of U.S. budget deficits,” Politico’s Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer, and Daniel Lippman wrote.

Also in the works is a plan for a second round of tax legislation to make tax cuts for individuals permanent. Republicans came under fire during negotiations for providing corporations with a permanent tax cut while individuals and families only received temporary ones, and making individual cuts permanent might help stem the backlash in the lead up to midterms.

Senate passes overwhelmingly unpopular tax bill in the dead of night

House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady confirmed the existence of such legislation earlier in March, after President Trump stated three times in the month of February that Brady was working on a second tax bill.

“We think even more can be done,” Brady said during a Fox Business appearance on March 14. “While the tax cuts for families were long-term, they’re not yet permanent. So we’re going to address issues like that. We’re in discussions with the White House, the president, on this issue.”

Making the individual cuts permanent will cost an estimated $1.5 trillion in the decade after 2025, according to a Tax Foundation analysis using numbers from the Joint Committee on Taxation.

As Politico previously reported, Republicans are attempting to use the second round of tax cuts as a way to shame Democrats who fail to support what the GOP sees as their biggest legislative accomplishment during the Trump administration.

Adam Jentleson, who served as deputy chief of staff for the former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, told Bloomberg there’s “very little chance” that the nine Democrats needed to pass the tax cuts would back a bill centered on making the individual tax changes permanent.

“It is a cheap political exercise and they shouldn’t lend it any more credence than it deserves,” he said.

Legislation like the balanced budget amendment, which forces Washington to be more fiscally responsible, sounds good in theory, but the reality is that, to achieve that goal, cuts will have to made and taxes will likely have to be raised. With a Republican-controlled Congress and a House speaker who has dreamed of slashing entitlement programs since taking office, that most likely means devastating cuts to welfare, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, at the very least.

That Republicans have their eye on slashing government programs comes as no surprise, of course. Shortly after Congress passed the tax bill, The New York Times warned of the “Trojan horse” hidden in the legislation that will serve as the setup for steep cuts. Paul Ryan himself said outright that Medicare and Medicaid were his next targets for 2018.

“We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,” Ryan said during an appearance on Ross Kaminsky’s talk radio show. “… Frankly, it’s the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health care entitlements — because that’s really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.”

More Democrats Should Be Calling for the Repeal of the Second Amendment

Esquire

More Democrats Should Be Calling for the Repeal of the Second Amendment

They have to drag the middle of the conversation back to the middle.

By Jack Holmes     March 27, 2018

Getty Images

No one in a national elected office advocates repealing the Second Amendment. No matter how many schoolchildren are cut down in a hail of bullets, no matter how many wives and girlfriends are shot to death by a spouse with a long history of abuse, no matter how many men commit suicide with a firearm in their own homes, the subject is never broached. No one in power is calling for government to restrict all gun ownership on that scale.

Occasionally, however, an outside observer will. Enter former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who called for repeal in a New York Times op-ed Tuesday:

“That support is a clear sign to lawmakers to enact legislation prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 years old, and establishing more comprehensive background checks on all purchasers of firearms. But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.”

Getty Images

This echoed the Times‘ conservative columnist Bret Stephens after the Las Vegas massacre in October:

“In fact, the more closely one looks at what passes for “common sense” gun laws, the more feckless they appear. Americans who claim to be outraged by gun crimes should want to do something more than tinker at the margins of a legal regime that most of the developed world rightly considers nuts. They should want to change it fundamentally and permanently.”

“There is only one way to do this: Repeal the Second Amendment.”

This was even floated by Karl Rove, the Republican operative who masterminded George W. Bush’s campaigns, after the massacre at Mother Emanuel church in Charleston:

“Now maybe there’s some magic law that will keep us from having more of these. I mean basically the only way to guarantee that we will dramatically reduce acts of violence involving guns is to basically remove guns from society, and until somebody gets enough “oomph” to repeal the Second Amendment, that’s not going to happen.”

For his part, Stevens—not Stephens—seems to think this would be a “simple” process:

“Overturning that decision via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option.”

This is a very legalistic take on things, befitting a judge. There is, indeed, a straightforward process to repealing an amendment—on paper. In reality, it is a Sisyphean political task. The last time a federal lawmaker introduced a bill to repeal the Second Amendment was in 1993, when Rep. Major Owens of New York brought one to the House. It went nowhere, just as it likely would now.

Getty Images

Even if Democrats regained control of both houses of Congress, the prospective amendment requires the approval of two-thirds of both houses. If it cleared that hurdle, it would need the approval of three-fourths of state legislatures. That doesn’t seem likely, even accounting for Stephens’—not Stevens’—slightly more realistic optimism:

“Repealing the Amendment may seem like political Mission Impossible today, but in the era of same-sex marriage it’s worth recalling that most great causes begin as improbable ones. Gun ownership should never be outlawed, just as it isn’t outlawed in Britain or Australia. But it doesn’t need a blanket Constitutional protection, either.”

All that said, there is political utility in staking out a position on the far end of the spectrum. Just ask Republicans. On gun rights alone, the NRA and its Republican lackeys have adopted the position that any restriction on gun ownership is unconstitutional and oppressive—and at the same time, that no gun restrictions will work, because criminals will still break the law.

(The latter, it bears repeating, is an argument against all laws. Laws are meant to construct obstacles to, and institute penalties for, bad behavior. The goal is to deter it, not prevent it from happening anywhere, ever. That someone robbed a bank is not evidence we should just give up on having laws against robbing banks. What if we tried passing better laws? As for the former, the Constitution specifically outlines how to amend it, meaning the Founders did not intend for it to be a sacred text that could never be changed. That’s why we’ve amended it 17 times since.)

Getty Images

That’s how Congress could not even pass a fix for federal background checks after a gunman with an AR-15-style rifle gunned down 20 six-year-olds in the halls of their elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. The NRA dragged the conversation among gun-rights advocates so far to the extreme that even modest solutions became unacceptable. Lawmakers were then threatened with the wrath of this radicalized constituency, even if a huge majority of gun owners backed the background checks fix. The loudest, most radical voices won out.

On the flip side, Democrats have repeatedly shown why beginning a debate by staking out a position of compromise is political malpractice. When President Obama embarked on his quest to pass healthcare reform, he quickly abandoned any push for a universal healthcare system like Medicare for All. As the process moved along, he also scrapped plans for a “public option,” the next-best thing for liberals.

RELATED STORY

Share These Gun Violence Numbers with Anyone

What he presented to Republicans in Congress was already a compromise: the Affordable Care Act was modeled on Mitt Romney’s brainchild in Massachusetts, and sought to, in part, use market forces to bring down healthcare costs. By this point, Republicans had embraced an ethos of all-out power politics, so they called it socialism and said Obama wanted to kill your grandma with a Death Panel.

Obama narrowly succeeded without support from a single Republican. If he’d started out calling for Medicare for All, would Republicans have backed something like the ACA? And might the ultimate solution have been somewhere in between—like, say, a public option?

For the longest time, Democrats have called for incremental changes to our gun laws. They want to expand universal background checks, institute waiting periods, and, on the “extreme” end, ban semiautomatic weapons. This has gotten them exactly nowhere. What if there was a Freedom Caucus-like group in the Democratic Party—without the complete detachment from reality—that argued for outright repeal of the Second Amendment? As Stephens put it in his op-ed, repealing the Second Amendment doesn’t necessarily mean ending gun ownership.

There’s a strong argument that some Americans need to own a gun to defend themselves, whether they live in rural areas where it takes too long for police to respond or they are, say, a single woman living in a dangerous neighborhood. Hunting is ingrained in local culture in large swathes of America, and should be possible. The question is what guns should be permitted for these uses, and who should be permitted to have them. Common sense, and every other developed country in the world, would say a handgun or a hunting rifle—not an AR-15.

Getty Images

Repealing the Second Amendment would simply make it easier to pass restrictions on gun ownership, as Stephens suggests. It should be possible under the amendment—two of the first three words of it are “well regulated”—but constant legal action from the NRA and others has made that impossible. That culminated with the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Heller v. District of Columbia, which, in a bit of conservative judicial activism, essentially established the individual right to bear arms under the Second Amendment more than 200 years after its passage. Much like with Citizens United and the flood of corrupt, unaccountable money it has allowed into our politics, the Supreme Court has exacerbated a problem the rest of us must now solve.

Even if repeal is politically treacherous, there must be a constituency in the nation’s highest legislative body that backs it. It is probably the right thing to do, but at the very least, it pulls the conversation back from the cliff over which gun-rights extremists have all of our feet dangling. Amid calls for outright repeal, more Republicans might warm up to the idea that it shouldn’t be easier for an untrained civilian to get a weapon of war than to drive a car. And, when the grand compromise finally reaches the table, Democrats can get it across the line by allowing AR-15’s to be kept and used at gun ranges. That’s the Art of the Deal.

Related:

Under the Second Amendment, there’s no constitutional right to own an AR-15

Occupy Democrats

February 27, 2018

Share this video with ANYONE you know who thinks the AR-15 is a constitutional right under the Second Amendment – but it’s NOT!!

Shared by Occupy Democrats; like our page for more!

Ari Melber Reminds Us All: the AR-15 is NOT Protected by the Second Amendment

Share this video with ANYONE you know who thinks the AR-15 is a constitutional right under the Second Amendment – but it's NOT!!Shared by Occupy Democrats; like our page for more!

Posted by Occupy Democrats on Tuesday, February 27, 2018

We must reduce the use of plastic

BBC is with BBC Radio 5 live.

January 1, 2018. Some New Year’s resolution inspiration – cut down on plastic in 2018!

The huge mass of plastic waste floating in the Caribbean

Some New Year's resolution inspiration – cut down on plastic in 2018!

Posted by BBC on Monday, January 1, 2018

How Your Private Information is Weaponized for Profit and Power

Greg Palast

March 21, 2018

Beyond #CambridgeAnalytica: How Your Private Information is Weaponized for Profit and Power

The Koch’s #i360 data mining op and its competitor, Karl Rove’s #DataTrust, use your credit card purchases, cable TV choices and other personal info, which is far more revealing than the BS you post on social media.gregpalast.com/cambridge-analytica-aint-nuthin-look-i360-d…/

Beyond Cambridge Analytica: How Your Private Information is Weaponized for Profit and Power

Beyond #CambridgeAnalytica: How Your Private Information is Weaponized for Profit and PowerThe Koch's #i360 data mining op and its competitor, Karl Rove's #DataTrust, use your credit card purchases, cable TV choices and other personal info, which is far more revealing than the BS you post on social media. gregpalast.com/cambridge-analytica-aint-nuthin-look-i360-datatrust/

Posted by Greg Palast on Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Trickle-down economics has been a cruel hoax

Robert Reich added a new episode on  Facebook Watch.
March 27, 2018

By appointing Larry Kudlow to head the National Economic Council, Trump is doubling down on trickle-down economics. Some inside the White House are even proposing another round of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. But trickle-down has been a cruel hoax. Here’s the evidence.

The Evidence of Trickle-Down's Failure

By appointing Larry Kudlow to head the National Economic Council, Trump is doubling down on trickle-down economics. Some inside the White House are even proposing another round of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. But trickle-down has been a cruel hoax. Here's the evidence.

Posted by Robert Reich on Monday, March 26, 2018

Trash: America v. Sweden

America Versus
America Vs Sweden: Trash
ATTN: posted an episode of America Versus.

March 27, 2018

We should burn our garbage like Sweden does.

America Vs Sweden: Trash

We should burn our garbage like Sweden does.

Posted by ATTN: on Monday, March 26, 2018

List of countries expelling Russian diplomats

USA Today

List of countries expelling Russian diplomats

by Oren Dorell, USA Today March 26, 2018

     (Photo: YOAN VALAT, EPA-EFE

The United States and more than 20 other countries took coordinated action Monday to expel Russian diplomats in a show of solidarity with the United Kingdom over the nerve-agent attack against a former Russian spy in England.

Russia denies any involvement in the March 4 poisoning, which British authorities said involved a nerve agent called Novichuk, which was developed by the Soviet military.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s response will be up to iPresident Vladimir Putin. “We will be guided by the principle of reciprocity as before,” Peskov said.

Here’s a look at the countries that announced measures and the number of Russians ordered to leave:

  • UNITED STATES: 60 Russian diplomats expelled. The Russian consulate in Seattle was ordered closed. It provided consular services to U.S. residents in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Washington state and Wyoming, as well as Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
  • BRITAIN: 23 Russian diplomats expelled. Prime Minister Theresa May said 100 Russian intelligence officers were being expelled from their countries. “And together we have sent a message that we will not tolerate Russia’s continued attempts to flout international law and undermine our values,” May told Parliament.
  • CANADA: Four Russians expelled identified as intelligence officers or people who used diplomatic cover to undermine Canada’s security. Three applications for additional diplomatic staff were being denied.
  • UKRAINE: 13 Russian diplomats expelled. President Petro Poroshenko said the next step is to increase sanctions against Russia for international crimes. Russia annexed the Crimea Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.
  • GERMANY, FRANCE, POLAND: Four Russian diplomats expelled from each country.
  • CZECH REPUBLIC, LITHUANIA: Three Russian diplomats expelled from each country. Lithuania also banned 44 Russian citizens from entering the country because of human rights violations, corruption or money laundering, according to the Latvian embassy in Washington.
  • SPAIN, NETHERLANDS, DENMARK, ITALY, ALBANIA: Two Russian diplomats from each country.
  • HUNGARY, SWEDEN, CROATIA, ROMANIA, FINLAND, ESTONIA, NORWAY: One Russian diplomat from each country.
  • LATVIA: One Russian diplomat, plus one Russian representative of a Russian company blacklisted.

Could a pill help with peanut allergies?

Could a pill help with peanut allergies?

Dr. Najibah Rehman, Good Morning America    March 26, 2018 

One of every 70 children and one of every 160 adults is allergic to peanuts, making it the most common food allergy.

For those who are severely allergic, the world can be a minefield.

A person with a serious allergy to peanuts can react to as little as a tiny sprinkling of the nut, with symptoms that can range from a simple rash to anaphylaxis, in which the immune system releases a flood of chemicals that can cause the person to go into shock and potentially die.

But a preventive treatment could be on the horizon that might help to guard against the most severe reactions.

Research has shown that pills containing peanut protein can act like a vaccine for the immune system. Use of the pills in a method called oral immunotherapy could help to reduce the severity of an allergic reaction to peanuts, according to a study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.

Severe food allergy cases skyrocketed over the past decade, study finds

Food supplements for young children that may help prevent allergies

This Feb. 20, 2015 file photo, photo shows an arrangement of peanuts in New York. The first treatment to help prevent serious allergic reactions to peanuts may be on the way. (The Associated Press)To be clear, the only way for a person with a peanut allergy to avoid all risk is to stay away from peanuts.

The immunotherapy treatment is geared toward people with the allergy who, while being careful to avoid peanuts, may still may be exposed accidentally.

The goal of the treatment is not to try to cure the allergy, but to train the immune system of an allergic person not to react as severely if exposed to a small amount of peanut. It works by slowly, over time, desensitizing the patient with increasing doses of the allergy-inducing culprit.

The study seeking to measure the possible effectiveness of the method was conducted on 29 people between the ages of 4 and 26 in 10 U.S. cities, plus another 26 in a control group. It was funded by Aimmune, the developer of the treatment. Authors of the research cite eight other articles on tests on the therapy from 2009 to 2015.

Each of the group of 29 participants in the study was given an experimental drug containing peanut flour packed in a pill. Those in the control group were given pills containing only oat flour.

Over a period of six months, participants receiving the peanut-flour pills were given gradually stronger doses of the powder.

People in both groups were then given a “food challenge,” with exposure to about one and a half peanuts. Among those in the group who had been taking the peanut pills, 79 percent exhibited no reactions to the allergen.

PHOTO: Peanuts are seen here in this undated file photo. (STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images)Among those who had been receiving the placebo, the percentage was reversed: 81 percent exhibited mild to moderate reactions such as itchy body rashes, vomiting, abdominal pain or anaphylaxis, with none of the responses being life-threatening. Only 19 percent in this group showed no reaction to the allergen.

One of the study’s authors, Dr. A. Wesley Burks, a professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina, said, “It’s great to have patients go from managing to tolerate at most the amount of peanut protein in a 10th of a peanut without reacting, to successfully eating the equivalent of between two to four peanuts with nothing more than mild, transient symptoms, if any at all.”

Other ongoing research, cited in a press release from Aimmune, has about 500 participants, all children between 4 and 17 years old. About 400 of them took escalating doses of the peanut-powder pills, with the rest taking placebo pills. As in the published study, about 76 percent of those taking the peanut pills were able to tolerate a small amount of peanut exposure in contrast to only about 8 percent of those in a control group, according to the press release.

More and larger studies will be needed before the treatment can be proven to work and submitted for FDA approval.

Meanwhile, it’s unclear what the price of this series of treatments would be, or whether insurance would cover it.

Dr. Najibah Rehman is a third-year preventive medicine resident at the University of Michigan, working in the ABC News Medical Unit.