Virginia’s Chesterfield County police have determined that there was no criminal negligence on the part of the school personnel in the tragic food-allergy death of 7-year-old Amarria Johnson on January 2. Also cleared of criminal wrongdoing, thankfully, was the child on the school playground who, not knowing of the allergy, handed Amarria the fateful peanut [...]

I have been there – to the place where you think your allergic life is unlivable. On a trip to Florida a couple of years ago, I got off the plane having a reaction to something. Who knows exactly what; I’d eaten only my own food, but hadn’t wiped down my seating area. Had a [...]

Hats off to the organizers of 1 in 133, the Gluten-Free Food Labeling Summit. In a matter of weeks, John Forberger, the tweeting, gluten-free triathlete (@GlutenFreeTri) and Jules Shepard (aka Jules Gluten Free) managed to gather hundreds of supporters together in Washington for the impressive May 4 summit. The purpose? To send the message to [...]

[This article was posted Feb. 11. On Feb. 14, the Health Minister announced the regulations would be passed, with an exemption for beer makers.] Like the guest who finally turns up for dinner just as you’re clearing the dessert plates, Canada’s breweries last month showed up to bellyache about the proposed gluten and allergen labeling [...]

Hallelujah, we’ve been heard. If you ask a flight attendant on WestJet, Canada’s second largest airline, she or he will step to the microphone and ask fellow passengers to please not pull out nut or peanut snacks. The attendant will briefly explain that this is because there is a person onboard with serious allergies. This [...]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our new and fabulous site. Please have a look around, and allow me to be your tour guide to point out a few features. First stop, the green navigation bar. If you pull down under Food Allergy, for instance, you’ll find full sections on the top food allergens, with comprehensive [...]

It has become fashionable as of late to mock food allergies as a “trendy” condition, a construct of over-protective parents or attention-seeking adults. I simply can’t think of any other serious, sometimes life-threatening condition that is dissed more often. Take last month, for instance. There we were smack in the middle of Food Allergy Awareness [...]

Was there ever a more capable foe Than one who shields his strength so? An unremarkable plant, heavy with seed cast to the wind with resolve and speed. As his fecundity causes grief both far and wide, from behind fairer bloom, he shrinks to hide. Between sniffles, I must confess a grudging admiration for the [...]

When a Harvard social scientist equated the measures taken by schools to accommodate food allergies with mass hysteria – the media ate it up. Perhaps it was the “emperor has no clothes” syndrome, gotcha journalism or simple contrarianism, but Dr. Nicholas Christakis’s article in the British Medical Journal got columnists and reporters buzzing in a way [...]

We’ve been getting a lot of e-mail lately at Allergic Living magazine from readers asking: what do you think about the Canadian Transportation Agency’s decision that Air Canada must accommodate peanut and tree nut allergies? Does it go far enough? And then Air Canada responded to the CTA, and that brought more mail: What do you [...]