Warning may lose effect
More and more foods bear a mishmash of warnings that they might accidentally contain ingredients that could sicken people with food allergies.
Yet there are signs that the new labels are instead creating confusion for families that should heed them.
About 12 million Americans have some food allergy; such allergies trigger 30,000 emergency-room visits a year.
A law that took effect last year requires foods that by design contain highly allergenic ingredients such as peanuts or shellfish to disclose that in plain language.
The accidental-allergy labels are different. They are aimed at foods that shouldn’t contain an allergen but might get contaminated: made in the same factory or on the same machines as allergen-containing goods.
University of Nebraska food scientist Steve Taylor tested 179 products that bore a variety of accidental-peanut warnings and found that 7 percent did contain peanuts.
Peanuts were in 2 of 51 foods that bore a “may contain” warning and 7 of 68 labeled “made in the same facility.”
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The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network, an influential consumer group, surveyed more than 600 parents of food-allergic children. In 2006, 75 percent said they would never buy a food with an accidental-allergy warning — down from 85 percent when the network posed the same question in 2003.
Worried that the labels may be losing credibility, the Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to intervene.
Penny Ackerman of Bethlehem, Pa., is strict about label reading to protect her 3-year-old son, Gregory, who is severely allergic to peanuts.
On a recent grocery trip, Ackerman didn’t notice until she got home that the chocolate chips she had always bought with confidence now carried a new warning that they were made in a factory that uses peanuts. She wonders whether the chips are made in a new factory, or whether the company hadn’t gotten around to labeling until now.
“If you don’t see it on the label, is it safe or is it not safe?” she said. “Because you don’t know.”
Consumers see the label “on so many products, they say, ‘Oh heck, I’m going to ignore it,’” said Taylor, a situation he says is akin to playing Russian roulette.
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