Mark Dolliver: The Food-as-Allergen Niche

Amid all the concern lately about tainted foods, some consumers need to worry about foods that are perfectly healthy for other folks. In a poll fielded for The Wall Street Journal Online’s Health Industry Edition by Harris Interactive, 20 percent of adults reported that someone in their household suffers from food allergies. While relatively few of these allergies are life-threatening, they’re a big deal for about one-third of people who have them (see the chart).