Of all the childhood allergies, an allergic reaction to eggs is
one of the most common. Typically, reactions can include
wheezing, nausea, headache, stomach ache, and hives. In extreme
cases, however, anaphylactic shock can result, which can itself
sometimes lead to death. Eggs are difficult to avoid, too - they
find their way into many foods that might not seem particularly
"eggy," and are even used in flu vaccines. Needless to say, for
some time now, scientists have been working on making eggs safe
for everyone. A team from Australia's Deakin University is now
claiming that they're well on the way to producing not just
hypoallergenic eggs, but the chickens that lay them. The vast
majority of egg allergy-sufferers are sensitive to four of the
40 proteins contained within egg whites. The Deakin team is
working on extracting those four proteins, "switching off" the
allergenic parts of them, then reintroducing the now-non-
allergenic proteins back into the egg. The chicken subsequently
born from that egg should