Globalisation and allergy.

Globalisation brings patients more and more into contact with products or food from other cultures or countries. Europeans may be confronted with allergens not yet known in Europe - such as dimethylfumarate - responsible for contact allergy epidemics. Moreover, "low cost" goods, not always legally imported into Europe, sometimes may lead to European legislation being circumvented and thus bring our patients into contact with components that have been banned from manufacturing processes or strongly regulated, such as nickel in jewelry or telephones, some colouring agents in clothes or preservatives in cosmetics. Disinfection measures for freight containers arriving from other continents into our harbours lead to fumigants and other toxic products contaminating the air and the transported products or goods. Globalisation can not only elicit contact allergy but also airborne contact dermatitis or food allergy. The aim of this paper is not to make an exhaustive review of cutaneous allergic problems elicited by globalisation, but to illustrate this new worldwide problem with a few meaningful examples.