Further to your main article on epilepsy (WDDTY vol 14 no 4), a series of studies was carried out at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in the 1980s under Professor Soothill, with Jo Egger and Christine Carter. They found evidence of epilepsy being caused by allergy when there was other evidence of allergy. Certainly, I can think of two children who remained free from epilepsy by paying attention to their allergies. The study was published in the American Journal of Paediatrics (1989; 114: 51-8), entitled ‘Oligoantigenic diet treatment of children with epilepsy and migraine’.

Finally, can you suggest what we should say to our MP about the EU’s Food Supplements Directive? - Val Kearney, Knaresborough, North Yorks

WDDTY replies: It is vital to keep alive the debate about EU restrictions on alternative medicine and remedies. The Alliance for Natural Health and the Consumers for Health Choice to mount a legal challenge to the directive, but we also need to keep up the pressure on our own MPs.

Let your MP know that the directive is unjust, unreasonable and unnecessary, and that many people, including his own constituents, will be flouting this law, and will continue to campaign against it.