Our Research
Allergy Associates of La Crosse is a private, independent practice that remains dedicated to advancing the use of sublingual immunotherapy for allergic conditions so that more individuals can benefit from its use.
Dr. David Morris began offering his patients sublingual immunotherapy in 1968. By 1969, he published his first paper, “Sublingual Immunotherapy for Food Allergy” in the Annals of Allergy. In 1970, with his second paper, Dr. Morris broke new ground in medicine; he was the first to report success using sublingual immunotherapy to treat respiratory diseases caused by mold allergy.
Although our primary focus remains patient care, we have continued to contribute to sublingual immunotherapy and general allergy research. It takes significant time, resources and funding to conduct “randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled studies,” which are the gold standard in the U.S. It is particularly difficult for us to conduct these studies at Allergy Associates of La Crosse, as we feel it is an ethical question to ask any of our patients, typically with significant allergic disease and traveling from a distance, to participate in a study where the treatment might be a placebo. But that is not stopping us from collaborating with other research institutes or conducting other types of research at our clinic. In the last 10 years, we have collaborated with leading institutions such as the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Duke University and Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center to investigate sublingual immunotherapy for dust mite allergy, peanut allergy and the economic benefit of sublingual immunotherapy. We have also shared our clinic research results at the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology annual meetings regarding treating patients affected by poison ivy with sublingual immunotherapy and the impact our treatment approach had on allergic conditions associated with asthma in pediatric patients.
Our most recent publication, "Quality of life improvements with sublingual immunotherapy: a prospective study of efficacy," has been accepted for publication in the international peer-reviewed journal, Journal of Allergy. A provisional pdf is currently available on their website.