Allergy Injury Attorney

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Several hundred people die each year in the United States from allergic reactions to food, even occasionally those who are aware of their allergies and take precautions to avoid problem substances.

In some cases foods containing common allergens are mislabeled or not labeled at all, while well-known problem ingredients get into products due to manufacturing errors or through cross-contact. Severe allergic reactions – including anaphalylaxis – can also occur after someone eats food from a bakery or restaurant.

And doctors can sometimes fail to fully inform patients of the seriousness of their allergies or bypass prescribing an EpiPen (epinephrine) to patients with allergies to the most common problem foods such as peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, wheat, milk, eggs and soybeans. Allergic reactions to medicines have also resulted in fatalities.

If you or a loved one suffered severe injury or death from a food allergy reaction that may have resulted as a result of a product mislabeling, lack of labeling, negligence of a health care provider or others, you may want to contact an allergy attorney.

Kline & Specter, P.C., is a Philadelphia-based law firm with some 30 attorneys, a number of whom are also experienced doctors (See Doctor/Lawyer), with the expertise and experience to litigate allergy injury lawsuits. The law firm handled one peanut allergy case that resulted in a $10 million verdict.

Each year, an estimated 50,000 people visit emergency rooms because of allergic reactions to food, including anaphalylaxis, a severe, whole-body allergic reaction that often happens quickly and can cause airways to tighten and difficulty in breathing that can lead to death.

Peanut allergies have been steadily on the rise in recent years and reactions to peanuts accounted for 55 percent of the deaths in one study reported in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Very often, common allergy foods are present in products that people do not suspect and many don’t think to check ingredient labels. (Food allergen labels were required under federal law starting in 2006.) Among the most common are salad dressings, Worcestershire sauces and barbecue sauces that may contain fish. Other sauces, puddings, cookies, hot chocolate, glazes and marinades, or vegetarian products may contain peanuts.

Some organizations even warn people with peanut allergies to avoid ice cream served at ice cream parlors because of possible cross-contact with peanut products. They also caution food allergy sufferers to be wary of claims that certain products – such as kamut and spelt as wheat substitutes – are safe, when they are not.

To learn more, visit the website of The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network at www.foodallergy.org
For a free legal case evaluation, contact an allergy lawyer today.