About Our Founder
Dr. David Morris (1929-2017) graduated from the University of Wisconsin Medical School, and after serving his internship in Duluth, Minnesota, and serving in the U.S. Air Force as a flight surgeon, he joined a private practice in West Salem, Wisconsin. His interest in allergy began early in life as he witnessed a family member with severe mold allergy and asthma, which drove him to study with distinguished physicians and allergy researchers from UW-Madison.
Not long after joining the West Salem practice, Dr. David Morris saw that many of his allergic patients didn’t respond to or were not candidates for the traditional allergy shot therapy that he offered at his practice — especially those patients with mold allergies. Many suffered from Farmer’s Lung, a hypersensitive condition caused by inhaling hay and straw dust or mold spores. For these patients, whose livelihood depended upon their ability to bring in the fall harvest, Dr. Morris learned that treating their allergies using the same antigens used in shots — but delivered through drops under the tongue — helped patients successfully build tolerance safely.
Founding Allergy Associates of La Crosse
Research and clinical experience with allergy drops, or sublingual immunotherapy, led Dr. Morris to establish Allergy Associates of La Crosse in 1970 and develop the La Crosse Method™ Protocol with his partners. Dr. Morris was board certified in Family Practice and by the American Board of Allergy and Immunology and was a fellow in the American College of Allergists. He developed a national following of patients who had exhausted other allergy treatments, but found allergy drop therapy to be an effective way to build tolerance for both environmental and food allergies.
Dr. Morris dedicated his life to helping advocate for those patients, and for allergy providers who were interested in offering their patients a treatment option that proved safe, effective, and flexible enough to treat the full spectrum of allergies and related conditions. He shared his knowledge through his protocol, as well as by publishing numerous research studies and papers in peer reviewed journals, including food allergy treatment in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology as early as 1969.
Dr. Morris retired from Allergy Associates of La Crosse in 2008, but his partners continue to build on the pioneering work he began. Their work further expands research to address environmental and food allergies and related conditions including peanut allergy, migraines, chronic sinusitis, asthma, and chronic vaginitis. And his patients, as well as countless others served by other providers, continue to benefit from the work he did to make a little-known treatment a credible, well-researched therapy that continues to change the face of allergy treatment.
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