(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- More and more kids these days are carrying around adrenaline kits aimed at treating severe reactions due to food allergies. Are they really needed? Depends on who you talk to.

According to a pro/con report published this week, these kits are either an anxiety-provoking waste of time or an essential weapon in the battle to catch deadly reactions before they lead to dire consequences.

Professor Allan Colver, M.D., from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne is on the con side of the fence, writing that severe food allergies are extremely rare. In England, for example, only eight children younger than 16 died from severe reactions during the entire decade of the 1990s. He also writes many kids outgrow these allergies and no clear evidence exists to determine which children with food allergies should be prescribed an adrenaline kit.

Professor Jonathan Hourihane, M.D., from University College Cork in Ireland takes the pro view, pointing out food allergies as a whole are extremely common, affecting as many as 6 percent of preschool-age children and 2 percent of adults. While he agrees with his colleague extreme reactions and deaths are rare, he stresses delay in treatment leads to poorer outcomes for people who do suffer these reactions. Because doctors don't have a good way to predict which people will be adversely affected, it's better to err on the side of caution and provide adrenaline kits to patients.

"Management consists of empowering patients and providing rescue drugs," he writes.

SOURCE: The British Medical Journal, 2006;333:494-498