The Chicago Tribune ran an interesting and important package of articles earlier this week having to do with products that are incorrectly labeled when it comes to their contents that might produce allergic reactions.

The paper’s investigation determined that kids and others are being used as guinea pigs by companies that don’t properly label their products, which sets allergic people up for harmful and potentially fatal reactions. At the same time, the government is doing very little to ensure that foods that say they don’t include potential allergens actually don’t contain them.

It’s estimated that 30,000 Americans of all ages have to go to the hospital for treatment of allergic reactions caused by food, and about 150 people die each year, mostly children. The paper found that many of the products with labeling problems are also those that are marketed to children, such as Jell-O, Oreos and SpaghettiO’s.

Five products a week recalled

The paper built a database of 2,800 recalls over the past 10 years related to food allergens, which amounts to an average of five recalls a week. You’d think, then, that we’d be hearing about such recalls all the time, but the paper found that 47 percent of the time the recalls were not announced to the public.

A third of all products recalled were candy, ice cream, cookies or other snacks, and just 7 percent of consumer complaints resulted in recalls. Half of all recalls had to do with undisclosed milk or eggs in a product.

Part of the problem is that food companies themselves, not federal regulators, decide if products need to be recalled and even are allowed to write their own press releases distributed by the Food and Drug Administration if they do decide to recall a product. That often means consumers get very little information about the nature of the health risk or where the particular products that might have a problem were sold.

The Tribune offers a play-by-play on allergens discovered by consumers in Wellshire Kids’ chicken nuggets, which they claimed were gluten free and which sickened at least two highly allergic children. Neither the company nor the FDA took action on the complaints, and though the company says it’s now phasing out those products because their gluten-free status could not be guaranteed, they haven’t pulled old product from the shelves.

Promises, promises

The paper also looked at claims by Whole Foods that its chocolate was made in a way that segregated potential allergens, thus making it safe to eat for people with allergies. The claim wasn’t true.

The label on the chocolate was changed after two recalls dealing with tree nuts in the candy, but similar wording remains on many other private-label products sold at the markets.

The idea behind the label is to inform consumers that the production plants do what they can to avoid cross contamination among potentially allergy causing products and those that don’t contain allergens, but the FDA says many companies use such labels to try to shield themselves from lawsuits and the regulations on using such labels may need to be tightened.

Production experts say it’s really impossible to segregate products that don’t contain allergens from those that do if they’re produced in the same plant. Wheat dust, for instance, will travel throughout the tortilla plant, and even if some products are only made with corn, the producer can’t guarantee no wheat got in.

And while Whole Foods says its products are safe and it stands behind both the products and their labels, the company is also conducting a review to determine if any label changes need to be made.

(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 28th, 2008 and is filed under Food miscellaneous, Food safety. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Permalink.