Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Label warnings-actual changes or liability issue?

My kids are of an age when they check labels carefully for warnings regarding allergens. They are also of an age when they want to try different foods. Anyhow, I have noticed in the last couple of years (actually maybe longer) that there are fewer "safe" choices for my kids who have multiple allergies. The biggest obstacles involve contamination from peanuts or nuts. Are food products becoming more dangerous for allergic kids or are the manufacturers simply taking more care to protect themselves from liability?

For example, partly based on prior bad experiences, DS/DD knows to avoid products that are made on the same equipment, particularly certain U.S. brands and all foreign brands. It used to be that many major products were safe, but now DS is afraid to even eat things like OREOS because at least some of the packages contain warning labels about possible contamination from the same equipment.

Then there are warning labels about nuts and/or peanuts being manufactured in the same facility. At 11, I really want DS/DD to make some of their own decisions but of course, they still take their cues from me. It is rather frustrating how limiting it can be to avoid all products made in the same facility. I am not even sure that I should insist. After all, they grew up with peanuts/nuts in the household, partly because I felt that it would be safer for them to learn to deal with it at home so that they can safely deal with it outside the home. We have discussed the implications but I ultimately left it up to them.

What has been your experience?

Are food products becoming more dangerous for allergic kids or are the manufacturers simply taking more care to protect themselves from liability?

I think it's a combination of both things. This is a very hot topic in the food industry.

The reality is that no labeling schema is likely to serve the entire spectrum of allergic persons.

The problem, however, is that the center of the allergic distribution requires a fairly substantial triggering dose of the allergen-- in the case of peanut, it's astonishingly high, from personal reports (which come from research study participants in Chicago and at Duke and Sinai, so I trust that these are probably accurate reflections of study participants)-- as much as 4-5 peanuts. ON AVERAGE.

Okay-- so for those people, any kind of warning labels re: shared facilities are probably overkill, because the liklihood of ever consuming enough of the allergen in a contaminated (as opposed to mislabeled or adulterated) product to provoke a reaction is pretty low.

Okay, well, that would be one thing-- but there is a secondary troubling thing to consider: those with the lowest triggering doses (and we're talking VERY low, here-- perhaps 10's of micrograms) are prone to the most severe reactions. It's not a smooth dose-dependence curve, either-- that is, triggering a systemic reaction in someone with a higher threshold requires more, sure-- but they are also less likely to suffer cardiac or pulmonary consequences during that reaction, too. There are additional problems in that IRB approvals for threshold studies almost always exclude those who have had previous life-threatening reactions to small doses. So they systematically skew to the center anyway. What data is there is very scary in terms of what it means for that outermost 2-3%, though.

So the real issue is the conundrum posed by that set of findings (all research-backed, as noted):

IF labeling is scrupulous enough to make labels reflect the level of safety that the 2-3% (who are most likely to suffer a fatal reaction, see), then by definition, it is also going to be overly restrictive for the other 98% of the distribution.

The people worst off are those in the upper quartile-- because it's clear that they can get away with "more" risk than that uppermost 2-3%, but they aren't so tolerant that they can simply IGNORE the warnings, either.


About 5% of products with warnings (though I think this was about 2010) DID contain measurable amounts of protein, by the way.


I realize that doesn't help. I'm sorry.

What I'd probably do personally is model calling manufacturers that use the labeling to find out what it means in the instance of anything in particular-- what form is the allergen in? What measures are taken to limit contamination, if any?


That way you have information to work with.

This may be something to discuss with your allergist, as the level of concern for each child may be different based upon past reactions.

For example, my son has reacted to what must be very small amounts of cross-contamination in cereal, salad dressing, chocolate chips, etc that did not have any warning labels but were made in a facility or possibly on the same equipment as foods with nuts/ peanuts. He also had an anaphylactic reaction ata restauant from cross- contamination, so we avoid foods with warning labels, even if we used to consider them safe. Oreos, for example, are manufactured different now, and we avoid them. We avoid anything that has any kind of warning label.

Some of his friends with nut allergies have a much higher tolerance and can pretty much eat anything unless it actually contains nuts as an ingredient. Their parents don't ban foods with warning labels unless they " may contain" nuts or peanuts, and sometimes not even then.

So it is very individual. Personally, I tend to think that if there is a warning, there may exist a possibility of cross contamination, so we avoi due to my son's past reactions.

I agree that it is highly individual. In our situation, peanuts are a relatively mild allergy, so we are okay with minor cross-contamination. We usually don't worry about "made in the same facility as". We do encourage checking labels every time, as manufacturers change all the time. Our issues have been primarily with restaurants and dairy products (it's amazing how many people ask if you want cheese on that, right after being told that there is a milk allergy!), and "I don't know, it comes out of a bag, and we threw the bag away already".

One other thing to bear in mind is that advisory labeling is completely voluntary in the first place-- and in the second place, it's also not at all standardized.

So one manufacturer's "may contain peanuts" is equal to another's "made in a facility" is equal to another's lack of any advisory notice at all.

And ALL of this only applies to FALCPA and the USA-- and foods regulated by the FDA, so not stuff that is handled by the USDA.

Labeling regulations are different in other countries.

Believe it or not, though, this is an improvement from 16 years ago.

Also food corporations hire lawyers to argue with the FDA about food labeling because they want to label products in the way their marketing people want to label the food.

Granted this is anecdotal, since I'm basing this on my personal experience of billing a food corporation thousands of dollars to argue with the FDA about food labeling issues.

I don't have my timesheets on me or I would tell you how long it takes to argue with the FDA.

So, so true! To all your points.

At least the selection of specialty allergy-free/reduced products is vastly broadened over even a few years ago.

I do sometimes wonder if companied are putting allergen labels on things to increase the sale of more expensive alternatives.

No need.

There are more than enough people with food restrictions which are choice rather than diagnosis based, and they will happily eat gluten-free, free-range pixie-dusted, sprouted whole-spelt buns or whatever at 17X the price of the product not thusly labeled.

In all honesty-- while some of those products have been helpful to people I know who have hard-core celiac or wheat allergy diagnoses, most of it is only GLUTEN-free in name, and that doesn't have a legal standard, either. {sigh}

While I agree that a lot of it is unregulated re-labeling, without the kind of care for cross-contamination that would be truly useful to the food-sensitive, I would imagine that it has net improved access to allergy-reduced/free foods. I like to think of it as fad-eaters subsidizing the dietary options of those with true diet restrictions.

And, I believe FDA issued regulatory guidance on the definition of "gluten-free" not that long ago:

http://www.fda.gov/food/guidancereg...atoryinformation/allergens/ucm362510.htm