Allergen Labels May Not Predict Food Content

[AdminCM]

Susan Posted: 03/01/10 at 03:07 am     

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It cannot be said enough...

Quote:



•food product label information on potential allergens is not regulated.


•some labels with no warning about an allergen may in fact contain traces of that substance.



Note:this study was published as an abstract and presented orally at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal

Quote:

Dr. Sicherer said manufacturers should do more internal testing to guide their product labeling. He also called for regulations restricting advisory labels to those products that actually contain allergens or residues.


Robert Wood, M.D., a pediatric allergist at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, who was not involved in either study, said the two reports help document the "inadequacy, inconsistency, [and] confusion for patients and their caretakers" resulting from current labels.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/AAAAI/13318





Ra3chel  Posted: 03/01/10 at 09:33 am       

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All I can think is, "no kidding."   



CMdeux  Posted: 03/01/10 at 11:45 am
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THIS just slays me, though....


Meanwhile, a separate study at the University of Nebraska found that terms used to describe the possible presence of milk fat or protein (such as "may contain" or "produced in a facility that also processes milk products") do not necessarily correlate with the likelihood of actual milk presence.


Some products listed as possibly containing milk residues tested negative, the Nebraska researchers found.


Uhhh.... reality check, here....


Unless a research study FOLLOWS successive batches of a particular product over time-- say a year or more... then they are going to get 'hit and miss' results with properly labeled items which really are "May contain."

As in... MAYbe it DOES.... and MAYbe it doesn't.  YK??

GAAAAA!!!

REALLy ticks me off that the top clinicians in the field seem oblivious to the sheer SIGNIFICANCE of that particular FACT when examining the results of a study like this one.

   

Boggles the mind, really.

I would never assume that Brand X Ice Cream was safe for egg and nut allergies on the basis of the result that ONE sample of it was found to be free of those allergens.

That would just be STUPID.



I do like this, however... and the recognition of this fact on the clinical side is pretty new:

In making recommendations to the FDA, Dr. Wood said, physicians "look out for our most sensitive patients, the ones who would react to a really trivial exposure."


"The really difficult part of this is, what threshold do you act upon? Do you act upon that most sensitive patient? Or do you protect 99%, 98%, or 95%?"


He pointed out that if the goal is to protect the most sensitive individuals, "then you may have more warning labels than we have already. You may know what they mean, more than we do right now, but it may not make buying food off the shelf any easier."


Of course, the most sensitive patients are.... um.... the ones that NEED the protection the most, YK?