There's but limited advice you can dispense to parents of your patients who have a potentially life-threatening food allergy: Avoid, avoid, avoid! Yet there's cause for optimism today among stymied clinicians and the four percent of Americans who have a food allergy—often to nuts or shellfish: a new Food Allergy Research Consortium convened at the end of June by the federal government, and led by a prominent pediatrician and food allergy expert, has been charged with, first, conducting basic, clinical, and epidemiologic studies aimed at developing therapies to treat and prevent food allergy and, second, developing educational programs aimed at parents, children, and healthcare providers.