The Food Allergy Initiative is celebrating a major victory in its campaign to create safer environments for children with food allergies and has applauded the U.S. House of Representatives in joining the U.S. Senate in its approval of the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act.
The new bill requires food manufacturers to clearly state if a product contains any of the eight major food allergens responsible for over 90% of all allergic reactions; those allergens are milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, wheat, and soy. The bill was passed by the Senate last March and will now be sent to President George W. Bush for his approval.
About 11 million people - roughly 1-in-25 Americans - are now believed to be affected by one or more food allergies, a disease triggered by the ingestion or contact with certain foods that may cause life-threatening reactions, or anaphylaxis, according to a recent Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network nationwide survey.
Seafood, common in the U.S. diet, includes fish (cod, salmon and tuna, for example), and shellfish (shrimp, crab and lobster, squid, scallop, clams, mussels, and snails). The study showed that a shellfish allergy is reported by 1-in-50 persons and a fish allergy by 1-in-250. The most commonly reported allergic reactions to shellfish were caused by shrimp, crab, and lobster. In the fish group, salmon, tuna, and halibut were the most common causes of reactions.
Like peanuts and tree nuts, a high number of recurrent and severe reactions were reported in the study for seafood allergies. Multiple reactions were reported by 53 percent for fish and 57 percent for shellfish. In 55 percent of fish reactions and 40 percent of shellfish reactions, evaluation by a physician or care in an emergency room was sought. Treatment of severe symptoms and administration of epinephrine, the drug of choice for treating a severe allergic reaction, was reported in only 15 percent of seafood-allergic patients.
The only way for someone with food allergies to keep from having a potentially life-threatening allergic reaction is to completely avoid foods and products that contain the allergens. Food-allergic consumers are forced to decipher labels for every food product they purchase, every time they shop - a tedious and terrifying process - made even more difficult by the technical language used in ingredient statements.
Consumers are assumed to know that albumin refers to egg, caseinate to milk, textured vegetable protein to soy. "Natural flavors" could refer to peanuts, tree nuts, or any other food. A recent study at Mount Sinai School of Medicine demonstrated that after reading a series of labels only 7% of parents of children with milk allergy were able to correctly identify products that contained milk and 22% of parents of children with soy allergy were able to correctly identify products that contain soy.