"allergies" news and stories

Over the weekend a tweet from celebrity chef Rick Bayless caught our attention. It read: "O, wht 2 do? Peanuts all thru r kitchen, severe allergy guest. Cnt serve in good conscience, 4 his safety. Says we owe him $ 4 inconvenience."

While we were unable to reach the chef to get the gritty details, the incident certainly caught the attention of Bayless' Twitter followers and those with food allergies -- who agreed that the chef made the right call, including Chris Wiess, VP of advocacy and government relations for the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN).

"When I first read the tweet, I was impressed with his response. It does seem like he took the issue to heart. If a restaurant manager or employee looked around and assessed the situation, and felt that they couldn't provide a safe meal, we wouldn't want them to take a risk. What Rick did was very admirable," said Weiss.

For chefs and restaurant owners, guests with food allergies aren't going away anytime soon, and the consequences are deadly serious. According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 100 to 200 people die in the United States from severe food allergy-related reactions each year. (Keep reading, and take our food-allergy poll after the jump.)

If you have an allergy to eggs, wheat or peanuts, you're far from alone.

Allergies appear to be on the rise, affecting about 10 to 12 million people, says the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). And according to a national survey, "elementary school nurses identified food allergy as a larger problem than diabetes," states Mary Jane Marchisotto, executive director of Food Allergy Initiative (FAI) in a press release. But thanks to the first-ever allergen guide, issued Monday by NIAID, doctors may soon have a better grip on proper diagnosis and treatment. (The full clinical guide is now available to the public on the official NIAID Web site, and a parents' guide is in the works.)

To better equip the health-care community, NIAID pulled extensive research from a group of 34 professional organizations, federal agencies and patient advocacy groups, including the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) for "Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Food Allergy in the United States."

In two-year-old Ethan Wily's church nursery program, photos hang of the children and next to each is listed his or her personal food allergies, according to a CNN article. The article's author uses the anecdote to illustrate the fact that allergies to common foods like nuts and shellfish seem to be growing more common among kids across the United States.

The number of kids with food allergies spiked 18 percent between 1997 and 2007, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found, CNN reported. About 3 million children under 18 had food or digestive allergies in 2007, according to the CDC.

Is it the Western diet? Is it that kids aren't being exposed to common allergens at an early enough age?

Doctors aren't sure.

Some speculate that the Western diet -- sanitized as it is -- is creating an opportunity for allergies to develop.

While I must steer clear of nuts, I've never let that affect my travel plans, although I imagine I'd have to be prepared if I ever make it to the land of the curry and cashews. So, what do you do if you're headed somewhere and have to keep an eye on your allergies?

CNN has a great list up, which suggests everything from the classic "talk to the chef," to traveling with cards that list your allergies in the language spoken at your destination. How neat is that? Just buy the card you need, and you won't have to worry about trying to translate yourself and accidentally telling someone you're allergic to shoes instead of shellfish.

I'm one of those people who is pretty laid back about their allergy, and even I see the benefit of this. Do you want to get stuck in some foreign hospital, or die before you finish your vacation? How inconvenient!

If you have any allergy travel tips, share below!

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