What's also misleading is how FAAN couches this information in its press kit: "Food allergy is believed to be the leading cause of anaphylaxis outside the hospital setting, causing an estimated 50,000 emergency department visits each year in the U.S." In fact, the study is citing any cause of anaphylaxis. FAAN suggests that 50,000 people visit an E.R. due solely to anaphylaxis from food allergies. That's simply not true.
The claim that 150 to 200 people die each year from anaphylaxis is grossly exaggerated. In 2004, the Centers for Disease Control cited just 14 deaths due to anaphylaxis. The only known registry of deaths from anaphylaxis noted 33 deaths between 1994 and 1999. Remember, all of these estimates refer to the total number of people who had an anaphylactic reaction for any reason, not just from peanuts or other foods.
Facts ought to be stubborn. In the past, Munoz-Furlong has stated that one child dying from an allergic reaction is too many. But Harvard doctor Christakis, again, puts things into perspective. "There are no doubt thousands of parents who rid their cupboards of peanut butter but not of guns," he writes, comparing the alleged 150 children and adults who died from peanut allergies to the 1,300 who die from gun accidents each year. He goes on to note that 2,000 kids drown each year. Indeed, the most common cause of death in kids is accidents. "More children assuredly die walking or being driven to school each year than die from nut allergies," Christakis writes.
The worst fallout is that doctors and medical groups who have fallen for the FAAN hype are doing more harm than good with their prescriptions to avoid peanuts. A study published last year compared the prevalence of peanut allergies in Jewish children in the United Kingdom (where young kids are told to avoid peanuts) with those in Israel (where peanuts are fine).
Unlike the survey-based studies before it, researchers administered two strictly validated questionnaires to identify kids with allergies. Then those kids were tested. In all, about 5,000 kids were included in each group. The result: Less than 2 percent of U.K. children were allergic to peanuts, compared to a mere 0.17 percent of Israeli children. The authors concluded: "Paradoxically [avoidance of peanuts] might be promoting the development of peanut allergies and could explain the continued increase in the prevalence of peanut allergies."
