Taking the fight against food allergies to Capitol Hill
By Giulia Gallo
Special Contributor
Stomach pains beyond all imagining, numbness and paralysis in legs, arms, feet and hands. Slurred speech, blurred vision, fogged thinking. Throat contracting, struggling to breathe.
Sound familiar? It does if you have ever experienced an anaphylactic allergic reaction.
To me, a 13-year-old girl, it’s all too familiar. Just last year I went through a scene identical to this when I accidentally ingested a peanut protein, which resulted in an anaphylactic reaction because I have a severe allergy to peanuts.
I am one of the 11 million Americans with food allergies — 3 million are children under age 18. And the number is growing.
Why? Nobody knows. It’s a growing epidemic killing 150 to 200 people a year, most of whom are small children who cannot take care of themselves.
Also, most people do not know that some allergies (like mine) are airborne. This particular problem is very hard to deal with on planes where everybody breathes the same air in a flying tube. If someone opens a pack of peanuts . . . well I know what happens. I’ve been through that too.
Even in the cafeteria at school I have to eat at a table in the back of the room so I am away from all peanut butter. It’s not exactly fun for me; I’d much rather be sitting at the main table with my class. My friends are great though. If they don’t have peanut butter they come sit next to me.
It’s a chore. A big, life threatening, unappreciated, frustrating chore which nobody seems to be educated about.
To get support and hear about emergency alerts and new discoveries, my family belongs to an organization called FAAN — Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network. On Oct. 17-19 my family and I were in Washington D.C. with the rest of the FAAN ambassadors, lobbying politicians who could co-sponsor bill H.R. 4063, Food Allergy And Anaphylaxis Management Act of 2005.
This bill was introduced by Nita Lowey, a member of Congress from the state of New York, and states that there need to be a national guide to food allergies for schools. The guidelines would be voluntary for schools, and would have more specific procedures for anaphylactic allergic reaction, which could save many children’s lives. This bill also asks for added research to the National Institution of Health for allergy research.
This bill is truly needed so not another child must suffer a fatal allergic reaction, especially at school. It is our chance to secure the futures of the next generation of kids with severe allergies, and hopefully is just one of the first of the bills to be influenced by FAAN to continue the case against food allergies.
Giulia Gallo is an eighth-grade student at St. Matthias School, Somerset.
*The attached/referenced article was originally published in The Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Metuchen, and is protected under U.S. and international copyright law