Tag: Allergies

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Time to add an “outrage” category. This is just insane: A church panel has invalidated a girl’s communion because she can’t eat wheat (original article here).

The girl has celiac disease, which means any amount of wheat can cause her serious health problems. A local priest was willing to let her use a rice-based wafer, but higher-ups declared it was invalid — that if there wasn’t wheat, it didn’t count. She can either take the communion with a wheat-based wafer, or not take it at all.

For all intents and purposes they’ve excommunicated this girl because of a medical condition.

Good thing I’m not Catholic and the sacrament doesn’t involve peanuts.

I wonder if the church would be willing to pay for emergency room visits (or funerals) resulting from this kind of situation?

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Congress has passed passed the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act, mandating the top 8 food allergens appear on labels in plain English! The voluntary labeling over the past few years has been very helpful. Well, some of it has — the “processed in a facility that also processes XYZ” labels mainly amount to a CYA statement, although I’m sure there are people sensitive enough that it does help.

The NPR story provided some examples of why this matters, including a story of a college student who had a very similar experience to one I had a few years ago: he bought a chocolate chip cookie from a vending machine — a brand he had been eating with no problems for several years — but they had added peanut flour to their mix without labeling the change. He died within 15 minutes. When it happened to me, I had enough medication to stop it. But I don’t eat anything from Famous Amos anymore.

Some other nice provisions include having the FDA do a study on cross-contamination [archive.org], and having the CDC track allergy-related deaths.

Further reading: The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, The Food Allergy Initiative. [Update: The organizations have since merged as FARE.]

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Here’s another interesting Food Allergy Alert:

Wisconsin Cheesecake Co., Inc., is recalling 28-oz. Candy Bar Cheesecakes containing either Butterfinger, Reese’s Pieces, Peanut Butter Cup, or Snickers brands because they contain undeclared peanuts.

Now I’m not sure what’s stranger about this: the fact that someone managed to leave peanuts off the ingredients list, or that they think a recall is necessary in this case. Anyone with a peanut allergy has long since learned to avoid anything that says “Snickers” or “Reese’s.” Heck, I still have to think twice to remind myself I can eat snickerdoodles. If I see a Butterfinger cheesecake, I don’t need to look at the ingredients. I already know it’s not safe.

Eh, maybe it’s to counteract all those “well-meaning” adults who don’t believe in allergies and insist, “Oh, just one bite won’t hurt you!” — and then watch in horror as the three-year-old who was left in their charge is rushed to the emergency room. I can just imagine someone like that saying, “Oh, well, it says Snickers, but it doesn’t say it has peanuts, so it must be safe for him.”