Peanut allergies have plummeted in children

One of my conspiracy theories that I loosely hold is that the majority of the fears that we have been sold on allergies was a direct result of marketing efforts by the inventors of the Epipen.

Anaphylactic shock is extremely rare. And even in cases of anaphylactic shock, it's only fatal in an even rarer number of cases (which makes sense, anaphylactic shocks is a biological reaction of your body to save itself, not kill itself).

We really don't know how many lives emergency epinephrine has saved, but it may have only been necessary in less than 1 out of 50 cases. However, it benefitted the manufacturer to overemphasize the prevalence of dangerous food allergies and the risks of shock and encourage doctors to prescribe them in increasingly more "just in case" cases".

It's in this world that parents and doctors alike became insanely cautious and paranoid about introducing allergens. Conveniently, we saw the rise of simpler, more highly processed baby and childrens' foods at the same time.

I'm not a doctor but it feels like there are a lot of holes here.

> Anaphylactic shock is extremely rare

~5% of people in the US have experienced anaphylaxis, but I don't know your definition of rare.

> it's only fatal in an even rarer number of cases

Could this be due to epipens being commonly carried by people likely to experience anaphylaxis?

> anaphylactic shocks is a biological reaction of your body to save itself, not kill itself

Because it is an immune response? Is the implication here that anaphylactic shock is actually a good thing?

And focusing on the conspiracy part itself

> the majority of the fears that we have been sold on allergies was a direct result of marketing efforts by the inventors of the Epipen.

Implying the increase in EpiPen prescriptions caused people to be more cautious about food allergies feels exactly backwards.