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Persons with Allergies Beware: Food Mislabeling Rampant in United States

The Chicago Tribune recently published a must read article for all persons with food allergies and all parents of children with food-related allergies.  The article entitled "Children at Risk in Food Roulette," reports the results of a recent investigation into the safety of American food products.  According to the article, American children with food allergies are suffering life-threatening, and completely avoidable, allergic reactions because food manufacturers routinely mislabel their food products, and food industry regulators routinely fail to adequately police store shelves.  In fact, the investigation revealed that an alarming number of food products sold as allergen-free actually contain harmful amounts of food allergens, and that the government rarely inspects food to find food allergy problems and doesn't punish companies that repeatedly fail to accurately label their foods.

The invesitigation also revealed that many of the problems occur with foods marketed to children, such as candy, cookies, cakes and ice cream.  Standard childhood favorites such as Oreos, Pop-Tarts, Frosted Flakes, Jello-O and Campbell's Spaghettios have all been recalled for unidentified or hidden allergens in recent years.  However, in many cases, the government and food manufacturing companies never inform consumers that a certain food has been recalled.  In fact, during its investigation, the Chicago Tribune found that nearly half of the allergy-related food recalls in the last 10 years were never announced to the public. This was true even in dozens of cases where the FDA classified products as likely to cause serious harm or death.

An estimated 30,000 Americans require emergency-room treatment and 150 die each year from allergic reactions to food.  A large percentage of these are children.

If you believe that you or your child suffered an allergic reaction or injury due to the mislabeling of a food product, you should contact the lawyers at Berger & Lagnese immediately for a free consultation.  Berger & Lagnese is your premier law firm for food poisoning cases.