The Kennedys' son is one of an estimated seven million Americans who suffer from food allergies. That's easier said than done. You can't count on a food's ingredient list to keep you safe. In a new study, a quarter of the food- processing plants checked by government inspectors in the upper Midwest were producing foods that contained allergens not listed on the labels. Then there's eating out, where most food-allergy deaths occur.
Food allergies occur when the immune system overreacts to certain proteins in food.
Typical symptoms are nausea, hives, skin rash, nasal congestion, and wheezing. They require lifelong vigilance, says Hugh Sampson of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. And anyone can develop new allergies at any time. For most sufferers, allergic reactions to food are a temporary discomfort. But not for the estimated 30,000 people each year in the U.S. who eat the wrong food and go into anaphylactic shock, a swift and terrifying reaction in which their throats can swell enough to cut off breathing.