Food Label Warnings Seen As Confusing
Monday, July 16, 2007; 7:51 PM
WASHINGTON -- More and more foods bear a mishmash of warnings that they might accidentally contain ingredients that could seriously sicken people with food allergies. Yet there are signs that the labels are creating confusion among families that should heed them _ even as new testing shows there is a real, if probably small, chance that foods with even the most vaguely worded warnings truly pose a risk.
The disconnect is sparking calls for standards on what are now voluntary warning labels. The Food and Drug Administration plans to seek advice from consumers and food makers, perhaps by year's end, before considering whether to intervene.
  Penny and Dean Ackerman pose with their children Emily, 6, and Gregory, 3, in their home in Bethlehem, Pa., Sunday July 15, 2007 More and more foods bear warnings that they might accidentally contain peanuts or other ingredients that can sicken some of the 12 million Americans with food allergies. But there are growing signs that the labels are creating confusion among families who should be heeding them, sparking calls for standards on this voluntary warning system. (AP Photo/Rick Smith) (Rick Smith - AP)  
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Worried the labels may be losing credibility, the industry's Grocery Manufacturers/Food Products Association already is preparing to update its own guidelines on when foods should carry the warnings.
Consumers see the label "on so many products, they say, 'Oh heck, I'm going to ignore it,'" laments Dr. Steve Taylor, a food scientist at the University of Nebraska who co-authored a recent study about the confusion.
For the seriously allergic, "I've characterized it as akin to playing Russian roulette with a really big gun that has 100 chambers and only one bullet. Sooner or later if you eat these products, you're going to eat the wrong one," he said.
About 12 million Americans have some degree of food allergy. Severe food allergies trigger 30,000 emergency room visits a year, and 150 to 200 deaths a year. Food labels help the allergic avoid ingredients that could sicken them.
A law that took effect last year requires foods that intentionally contain highly allergenic ingredients such as peanuts, shellfish or eggs to disclose that in plain language.
The accidental-allergy warnings are different: They're aimed at foods that aren't supposed to contain a particular allergen but might become contaminated with it. They may be made in the same factory, or on the same machines as allergen-containing goods.
In a report to Congress last year, FDA said a quarter of recently inspected food factories had the potential for such a mix-up.
The warnings are voluntary, so different companies use different, sometimes vague, wording. Nor does anyone count how many foods bear them, although all sides agree more are. Enter the new research, in this month's Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
First, the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network, an influential consumer group, surveyed more than 600 parents of food-allergic children. In 2006, 75 percent said they would never buy a food with an accidental-allergy warning _ down from 85 percent when the network posed the same question in 2003.
A warning's wording determined if some parents ignored it: "May contain peanuts" sounds scarier than "packaged in a facility that processes peanuts" _ and thus 88 percent said they heeded the first warning while just 64 percent heeded the latter.
