Girl Dies From Allergic Reaction to Sesame Seeds

[The Mad Monk]

A girl died after eating a baguette which contained sesame seeds.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45679320

A very sad story, but, moving on from that why do people have these allergic reactions to different types of food?

It never used to happen, why does it happen nowadays.

What can we do to get back to the tolerance that just about everybody used to have?

[randlemarcus]

An unscientific guess would be when the allergic folks die a lot younger, and without media coverage.

[eybic]

Some claim that it's to do with us living in such a sterile environment compared to how things used to be so our bodies are more and more sensitive to things.

[jcremonini]

Or it (the effect) used to happen but the cause was never properly identified.

[Gary C]

The Mad Monk said:

A girl died after eating a baguette which contained sesame seeds.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45679320

A very sad story, but, moving on from that why do people have these allergic reactions to different types of food?

It never used to happen, why does it happen nowadays.

What can we do to get back to the tolerance that just about everybody used to have?

But it did used to happen !

[poo at Paul's]

This is a sad case, but the media and parents tbh seem to be making this into more that it surely being a tragic accident? They are saying the rules and labelling played "Russian roulette" with her life? Well I read that there was "no labelling", so I suppose that is what they refer to! But then why "pick up the gun" so to speak? They assumed no labelling means nothing "dangerous" in it, and that it surely an obtuse and dangerous assumption?
If an allergy is life threatening, and I am not saying they knew it was, but if they did, would you not be better to take and consume your own food?

The poor girl clearly has an horrendous end, and being on the plane can have only made it harder, but this still appears to me to be a tragic incident. The shelves said to ask about allergies with staff, they don't appear to have done so, and bought a sandwich with no labels and assumed it was ok. That is risky if you have such a strong allergy. Maybe they did not know how bad her allergy was hence were more relaxed about it? In which case, again, surely more of a tragic set of circumstances coming together to a terrible result?

[Shakermaker]

randlemarcus said:

An unscientific guess would be when the allergic folks die a lot younger, and without media coverage.

Yes, this. People did die of allergies before, but nobody really understood that they were dying because of allergies. And that the there have been significant advances in medicine and treatment of disease which mean that people are able to survive such events, which means they can also pass on their genes to children etc.

plus, the population has risen very quickly compared to in the past, so there are just more people to have more allergies.. etc etc.

[eybic]

In my mind though, if she had an epi pen, her allergy is bad enough to be able to kill so I wouldn't be eating anything I either hadn't prepared myself or was 110% certain of it's ingredients. There does seem to be a need to blame someone rather than just deal with the fact she had a bad allergy and it killed her.

[TooMany2cvs]

The Mad Monk said:

A girl died after eating a baguette which contained sesame seeds.

In 2016.

Top tip - if you have a potentially fatal allergy to something relatively common, don't buy sandwiches that have no allergen labelling on them. "Lack of information" is not the same as "Explicitly says OK".

Especially artichoke, olive and tapenade sandwich... Tahini is not a massively unusual ingredient in tapenade.

The Mad Monk said:

It never used to happen, why does it happen nowadays.

What can we do to get back to the tolerance that just about everybody used to have?

It did. They just didn't live long enough to have any kind of diagnosis, and people generally expected kids to die.

[Fittster]

eybic said:

In my mind though, if she had an epi pen, her allergy is bad enough to be able to kill so I wouldn't be eating anything I either hadn't prepared myself or was 110% certain of it's ingredients. There does seem to be a need to blame someone rather than just deal with the fact she had a bad allergy and it killed her.

You don't think the packaging should make the contents of the food clear?

[Gandahar]

I have a bad peanut allergy so I am careful when I eat out, especially in Asian/oriental establishments which I love a lot.

I'm not sure how far you can go with this, because if every menu had every ingredient on, not just highlighted, it would be a really long menu. They do highlight the normal problems like nuts etc, but I have not heard of a sesame seed allergy before now.

If we take this back to evolution without science then people with allergic reactions tend to die out, like me, and therefore this reaction also dies out. With modern science it continues.....

That sounds a bit heartless, and I am sorry for the family as a personal loss is always terrible, but in the greater scheme of things it does make you ponder the downsides of science taking over from evolution. This is just another example.

In this case science failed, or luck ran out.

I probably have not phrased the above well.

[eybic]

Fittster said:

eybic said:

In my mind though, if she had an epi pen, her allergy is bad enough to be able to kill so I wouldn't be eating anything I either hadn't prepared myself or was 110% certain of it's ingredients. There does seem to be a need to blame someone rather than just deal with the fact she had a bad allergy and it killed her.

You don't think the packaging should make the contents of the food clear?

I do but the lack of this should have rung alarm bells with her/ her family and it shouldn't have been eaten.

[anonymous-user]

I've read about this and I find the reasoning for not getting the defibrillator very questionable - what's the point of having it when you don't get it?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-45653...

[Burwood]

Fittster said:

eybic said:

In my mind though, if she had an epi pen, her allergy is bad enough to be able to kill so I wouldn't be eating anything I either hadn't prepared myself or was 110% certain of it's ingredients. There does seem to be a need to blame someone rather than just deal with the fact she had a bad allergy and it killed her.

You don't think the packaging should make the contents of the food clear?

Yes, absolutely. Terrible case which was avoidable. I also think people this prone should not risking it if unsure. Not the first Pret incident-several. They should have the book thrown at them.

You do wonder. A good friend I've known for 20 years came over for lunch which I 'cooked'
she starts eating it and says 'had this got fish in it', err yes. She's severely allergic to fish (carry a pen) allergic. I never knew. I felt terrible but did say, why didn't you ask or tell me about your allergy!

[otolith]

It's interesting that prevalence of childhood food allergy seems to increase as countries westernise.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC38790...

It would appear that we are doing something that is causing this.

[BenjiS]

The Mad Monk said:

A very sad story, but, moving on from that why do people have these allergic reactions to different types of food?

They just do. My son has a similar allergy, it's been there from birth, it's biological/genetic.

The Mad Monk said:

It never used to happen, why does it happen nowadays.

Yeah, it did, you just didn't hear about it. They were 'accidental' deaths that people didn't know the cause of.

The Mad Monk said:

What can we do to get back to the tolerance that just about everybody used to have?

You can't.

The amount of times I've had the conversation with people, including his bloody teachers...

"But it says 'may contain nuts', so it's ok, because it might not"
"Yes, but if it does, it'll kill my son, are you ok with that?"

Allergies are not funny, and they're not there for fashion reasons. They kill and they are serious.

[TooMany2cvs]

La Liga said:

I've read about this and I find the reasoning for not getting the defibrillator very questionable - what's the point of having it when you don't get it?

Something goes st-shaped on landing, nobody on door - lots of people may die.
Abort and delay landing? Delays medical care for passenger.
Will the defib even work...?

Burwood said:

Not the first Pret incident-several. They should have the book thrown at them.

Except they didn't do anything outside the rules. The problem is the rules, not Pret breaking them.

[Shakermaker]

Gandahar said:

I have a bad peanut allergy so I am careful when I eat out, especially in Asian/oriental establishments which I love a lot.

I'm not sure how far you can go with this, because if every menu had every ingredient on, not just highlighted, it would be a really long menu. They do highlight the normal problems like nuts etc, but I have not heard of a sesame seed allergy before now.

You're right in some ways.

But then a one-location Asian restaurant is not the same as Pret A Manger which has hundreds of outlets.

And, whilst they say "All our food is freshly prepared on site" - its all prepared to exactly the same recipe in every store. So that if you buy a Swedish Meatball Panini in Heathrow Airport, it should taste exactly the same as a Swedish Meatball Panini bought in Rochester, or Brighton, or wherever. All the ingredients come to them and they assemble it there. All the packaging comes to the site as well. The staff don't have the choice to go "Do you know what? I think I'm going to mix it up a bit and put Avocado in with the bacon and cheese croissant today" because it isn't on the list of approved.

So the actual process of having the label for each individual item listed with the ingredients does not to me sound like it will require a significant change in process - certainly not for the operatives in store who follow a recipe/process each time they make a sandwich and then put it in the apporpriate sandwich box with a label on it which says what it is. At a central level they need to work all of this out. And then put the usual disclaimers on that you see on other packaging "Contains Nuts/Soya/Dairy/Gluten/Wheat/Mustard/Sesame/Air" or "This item has been made in a site where any/all of the above are handled"

[eybic]

@benjiS would you buy food from somewhere for your son if it had no allergy info on the packaging? Surely unless you're totally sure, you wouldn't buy it? I'm lucky in that my boy seems to be allergy free (touch wood etc. etc.) but I wouldn't take any chances if he did have a severe allergy.

[Yertis]

Shakermaker said:

Yes, this. People did die of allergies before, but nobody really understood that they were dying because of allergies.

I was chatting with a GP friend about this a couple of years ago, and he pointed out that when we were kids there seemed to be a lot more "choked on a nut" type incidents, so it may be that.