Jeremy: 
> I can agree there in principal, but I wouldn't consider the allergy/GMO thing a strong correlation unless you could demonstrate that similar countries to those identified that do NOT use GMO do NOT also have a large rise in allergy rates.

Comment:
I remember thirty years ago watching a documentary called "Allergies: the Twentieth-Century Disease". One of the things they pointed out was that in the twentieth century most of the major plagues had been vanquished, leaving people to suffer from other problems, such as allergies. In centuries past, something like an allergy would have been a small matter when people were dying en masse. Being an allergy sufferer my whole life, I am not belittling allergies. Rather, pointing out the idea that increased allergies is caused by some new factor seems to be a recurring theme over the decades.

QUOTED:

"Twentieth-century disease", or "total allergy syndrome", is a condition attributed to hypersensitivity to the environment that may sometimes be seen as so serious that the patient is incapable of living in the modern world. Although the popular media frequently carry stories about it, there is little scientific literature. It is diagnosed by clinical ecologists, who maintain, among other theories, that susceptible individuals experience an overload in assaults by artificial materials in the environment. The patients usually have multiple ill defined symptoms for which no organic cause can be found, but they vigorously resist psychiatric referral, as they attribute their symptoms to allergy. A group of 18 patients who were purportedly suffering from 20th-century disease were referred to a university psychiatric consultation liaison service. They virtually all had a long history of visits to physicians, and their symptoms were characteristic of several well known psychiatric disorders. The case histories and management of three of them are presented. Although this group of patients may have been atypical in that they had more severe psychologic symptoms, the experience indicates that a psychiatric diagnosis ought to be considered. The symptoms of 20th-century disease have much in common with other conditions known to physicians for centuries. 

Our patients, frustrated by having symptoms
but no diagnosis, turned to clinical ecologists, who
diagnosed 20th-century disease. These medical
practitioners stress environment as a cause of
illness; their practice is based on many theories,
including the belief that in low doses various
substances usually considered nontoxic to most of
the population can interact with one another to
produce illness in susceptible individuals. These
theories have not been. accepted by conventional
medicine, as they are based on studies whose
methods and validity are questionable. Treatment
of 20th-century disease is unorthodox, as well as
expensive. Neutralizing solutions (dilutions of the
antigens to which the patient has responded adversely)
are given sublingually to alleviate or
prevent reactions. Rotary diets provide the patient
with steady, limited, nontoxic exposures to foods.
The use of air ecologizers, ecologically safe havens
and triply distilled water is meant to prevent
exposure to other environmental toxins. Patients
seriously afflicted with 20th-century disease are
said to require hospitalization and treatment in the
United States, where ecologically safe clinical units
have been constructed. 

Psychiatric assessment of patients with "20th-century disease" ("total allergy syndrome")
Can Med Assoc J. 1985 November 15; 133(10): 1001–1006.

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