According to a broad class of plausible materialist views, any system with sophisticated enough information processing and environmental responsiveness, and perhaps the right kind of historical and environmental embedding, should have conscious experience. My central claim is: The United States seems to have what it takes, if standard materialist criteria are straightforwardly applied without post-hoc noodling. It is mainly unjustified morphological prejudice that blinds us to this.
In the context of EoE, the allergic reactions are often considered to be primarily non-IgE-mediated, with symptoms developing in a delayed manner, typically hours or even days after the ingestion of the triggering food. On the other hand, hives are characteristically an IgE-mediated reaction, with symptoms appearing rapidly, usually within minutes to an hour after exposure to the allergen. Therefore, it is biologically plausible that an individual's body could react to the same allergen through both an IgE-mediated pathway, leading to the immediate onset of hives, and a non-IgE-mediated pathway, contributing to the delayed esophageal inflammation seen in EoE.
While studies have shown that a significant percentage of individuals with EoE may have positive skin prick test results for food allergens (nearly 70% in children and 50-60% in adults) , these positive results do not necessarily mean that the same foods are the ones triggering the inflammation in their esophagus. An individual with EoE might have a positive skin test to milk, indicating an IgE-mediated sensitivity, but the primary trigger for their esophageal eosinophilia could be wheat, which might not show up on a skin test. Therefore, a positive skin test result for a food allergen in a patient with EoE should be interpreted with caution and does not definitively confirm that the same food is causing their esophageal inflammation.
