Campaign presses for accurate food allergen labeling

A group of mothers have ed to create a campaign on Facebook to press for a regulatory requirement that food labels include clear details on the presence of potentially allergic ingredients, or traces of such ingredients.

The idea for the campaign was derived from online information sharing between more than 700 families of children with some kind of food allergy, who wanted to raise public awareness of the risks posed by incomplete and inaccurate food labeling on allergy sufferers. Depending on the condition severity, sufferers may respond with allergic anaphylactic shock, glottal closure, and other serious reactions that could be ultimately fatal. In ten days, the #poenorotulo hashtag (“Põe no Rótulo” is Portuguese for “Say it on the label”) has garnered over 11,300 likes.

Driven by the daily difficulties she has had buying safe food products for her two-year-old Rafael, São Paulo lawyer Maria Cecília Cury Chaddad has pursued doctoral studies in Constitutional Law with a focus on labeling allergens in foods. Rafael is allergic to milk and soy, and has never eaten highly allergy-causing foods like peanuts, oilseeds and nuts, or crustaceans.

“I started cutting several items out of the household diet, and was stunned to find that there are no regulations on the subject,” she said. As an example, she mentioned whipped cream which is not described to contain milk – instead, the label lists sodium caseinate, a salt derived from a milk protein, casein. “I mean, how many people know about this and are familiar with these complicated names? In the end, they are just plainly unadvised that there is milk in this stuff,” she argued.

A study conducted in 2009 by the Allergy and Immunology department at the São Paulo University Hospital (HC) found that 39.5% of allergic reactions to cow's milk were related to label misreading.

Chaddad noted that families have to get around carefully reading every label with extensive ingredient listings, often in small letters, and unfamiliar names, in order to try to find out if that food is suitable for consumption.

Mothers advocate that details about major food allergens or traces of these foods – including milk, soy, eggs, wheat, peanuts, oilseeds, nuts, dried fruit, and fish – must be clearly and prominently specified in labels, as happens with gluten, a substance that cannot be eaten by people with celiac disease. A 2003 act required that appropriate wording like “contains gluten” or “gluten-free” is included on processed food packaging.

Rio journalist Mariana Claudino is the mother of four-year-old Mateus, who is severely allergic to three milk proteins including casein. She told Agência Brasil that customer services (usualy known as “SAC” in Brazil) in the food industry and schools are usually not knowledgeable about food allergies.

“Customer services are usually unaware of the importance of being able to provide accurate details on machinery used for making several food products and the risk of cross-contamination. And since it is not regulated, this is not the kind of information they disclose. People think that food allergies are just petty, just about some minor itching, but it can actually be fatal to severe sufferers,” she pointed out.

Claudino recalled that her boy's most recent episode was elicited by trifling with white chalk at school. “We eventually found out that that chalk brand contained casein. You see, it isn't just about what we eat; in fact, milk protein can be found in the most unsuspected items like mattresses, body lotions, or sunscreen.”

Because of Mateus's severe allergy, Claudino is extra cautious and discerning about restaurant kitchens. She also keeps a supply of injectable epinephrine handily available at her son's school and another at home in case of an anaphylactic shock.

The “Põe no Rótulo” campaign is pressing for specific legislation on the issue, or at least health surveillance standards requiring the food industry to accurately list potentially allergenic ingredients in food labels.

ANVISA told Agência Brasil that the discussion is already underway within Mercosur, but it will depend on consensus among member countries. The discussion has been going on for nearly four years now, the agency said. In the US, industries have been required to provide this information since 2006; in the European Union, Australia and New Zealand, since 2003; and in Canada, since 2011.

Translated by Mayra Borges