POLICE must be commended for their work in establishing who was responsible for the death of Paul Watson, a peanut allergy sufferer.

The conviction of the restaurant owner will ensure that restaurants up and down the country stop cutting dangerous corners in the preparation of food.

There is something else the government must do. With statistics showing a 117 per cent increase in peanut allergy from 2001 to 2005, it is clear that we must establish the human behavioural change that is causing this dramatic and dangerous escalation in allergies in developed nations.

All sorts of possible explanations have been advanced. There are studies exploring the fact that in Caesarean births, as opposed to natural births, babies may fail to be exposed to the mother’s microbiome, microbes vital to our bodily health.

Other studies show breast milk may or may not provide a key.

Then there is the exposure or lack of exposure to chemicals and/or microbes in the wider environment, pollution, air fresheners, cleaning products, food, packaging.

This is not at all about pointing fingers of blame but, one way or another, we have to reverse this man-made increase in allergies, for the sake of children yet unborn.

Christian Vassie, Blake Court, Wheldrake, York