Can Hookworm be a Cure for Allergies?

Being a long time sufferer of all sorts of auto-immune related diseases (asthma, eczema, etc.), I was particularly drawn to this interview on NPR's This American Life.

It is about a guy named Jasper Lawrence who learned that hookworms might lessen the effects of his allergies, so he actually traveled all the way to West Africa to purposefully become infected with the parasite. Apparently the remedy worked so well for him that at one point he decided to spread the good news by selling hookworms over the Internet, but his operation didn't last long before the government shut him down.

The fact that allergies seems to be a diseases that is uniquely prevalent in developed worlds have long baffled scientist, and many are theorizing now that perhaps by being "too clean", we actually kill off the germs and bacterias that could be the key to a healthy immune system.

If you are curious, here's an extensive article about this topic and researches done on NY Times.