Cuando la violencia genera identidad. La guerra en Sri Lanka y la di\ue1spora tamil en Sicilia

In the last two decades, Sri Lanka was the stage of a long civil war between Sinhalese Buddhist majority and the Tamil Hindu minority, that fought independence. The first part of the article shows that the war was not caused by ethnic-cultural differences, but rather by political and economic reasons. The war has led to a radicalization and crystallization of ethnic differences, through the manipulation of the past and the political role of Buddhism, the conflict has created Tamil diaspora in whole world, and in Sicily too. In the second part of the article I present some items of the fieldwork done inside the Tamil community located in Palermo, Sicily

Safety of an Accelerated Build-up Phase With Pollen Allergoids: A Retrospective Study

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Wheat allergy: a double-blind, placebo-controlled study in adults

Background: Wheat is believed to be an uncommon cause of food allergy in adults; the number of studies that address IgE mediated wheat allergy in adults is all too few. Objective: Determine how many subjects with a history of wheat allergy have real allergy by double-blind, placebo-controlled food challenge; identify the symptoms manifested during the challenge; determine the lowest provocation dose; determine the performance characteristics of wheat skin prick test and specific IgE; identify subjects with real wheat allergy for potential immunoblotting studies. Methods: Patients underwent skin test with commercial wheat extract; specific wheat IgE was determined. Subjects were challenged with 25 g wheat. Subjects who were positive to raw wheat challenge underwent cooked wheat challenge. Results: Thirty-seven double-blind placebo-controlled wheat challenges were performed on 27 patients. A total of 13 of 27 (48%) patients had a positive result. Eleven subjects with positive raw wheat challenge underwent cooked wheat challenge: 10 were positive. The provocation dose range was 0.1 to 25 g. Twenty-seven percent of the subjects allergic to wheat had a provocation dose that was 641.6 g. Conclusion: Wheat causes real food allergy in adults. More than a quarter of the patients allergic to wheat reacted to less than 1.6 g wheat. Specific IgE was more sensitive than skin test for wheat; however, specificity and predictive values were low for both tests. Thus, these tests should not be used to validate diagnosis of wheat allergy