to think that Pret are responsible for this young woman's death

[brizzledrizzle]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-45617845

A 15 year old with a sesame allergy died after eating a sandwich from Pret a manger; the company confirmed that 'its products were not individually labelled with allergen or ingredient information.' (missing apostrophe not mine)

I think it's appalling that they don't label products and pretty stupid to bake baguettes with sesame seeds inside if you aren't going to make it very obvious on the packaging that they contain sesame seeds. The government website says that they must be on the packaging because of allergies.

@Stupomax

The alternative brands are also having a shortage due to the increased demand on them. People all over are being advised not to throw out their expired pens until they have a new one in their hands.

The alternative brands are also having a shortage due to the increased demand on them. People all over are being advised not to throw out their expired pens until they have a new one in their hands.

I see stories about shortages of Adrenaclick but not Auvi-Q. In fact I see that Auvi-Q is making more available more easily... Maybe you are seeing stories that I am not?

But yes, not throwing away expired pens makes sense.

It's entirely relevant how big the chain is, shearwater. Pret could very easily have pre-printed packaging and/or labels for all its stores because it prescribes what should be in every sandwich, roll, wrap, salad box etc. That isn't nearly as easy or as economical for a high-street sandwich shop.

I doubt that businesses will go down the route of saying they can't guarantee their food isn't free of allergens, because that would put an awful lot of people off going into their shops. In practice, since this incident Pret has in fact started putting prominent labelling on its products showing what allergens they contain, so to their credit they've managed to avoid taking the easy route.

Such a tragic case. We’ve been managing my DD’s allergy to nuts since her diagnosis at 15 months. She’s now 11. I hate how I feel so self-conscious mentioning it when she goes new places. People say ‘oh I know someone whose child has a really serious allergy, full-blown anaphylaxis etc...’ intimating that she doesn’t have one because we’ve never had to use an epipen (and because she doesn’t have asthma they don’t routinely give her them) We’ve possibly become complacent and have occasional risked a white bread baguette with something like ham that’s been unlabelled and we’ve been lucky. This case has been a tragic reminder that the stakes are far too high to take any risk.

Incidentally, we flew BA to America this year and were not happy when we got the pasta in tomato dish and saw it had a label saying may contain nuts. Luckily we had some pre-packed brioche buns and she ate them instead. Like others have said we couldn’t pre-order saying we had a nut allergy but the steward said we should let them know next time but were ignorant of the fact that their own pre-ordering system doesn’t allow it. They seemed a little glib and asked if we carried epipens and when we said yes the steward said ‘oh you’ll be OK then’! It’s obvious that that’s not always the case.

Poor girl and poor family. Seems like a combination of factors contributed to her death and my heart goes out to all those affected.

This tragic death will open many eyes

I suspect many people mixed up allergies with intolerances .

Seeing that a child died in such awful circumstances will wake a lot of companies up . It’s good it’s been so publicised

Cases like this are one of the reasons why I become very irritated when I hear people claiming they have allergies when they have either an intolerance at worst or are just following some faddy diet to lose weight.

It muddy’s the waters and makes people get confused not taking allergies seriously. I have a genuine nut allergy. I’ve had friends who have gone gluten free try and claim equivalence. Feeling a bit tired after eating bread and claiming it makes you fat is not the same as being unable to breath and all of your vital organs shutting down following an extreme immune response to an allergen (I exclude people with Chrone’s as that’s a horrible illness).

Good article in today's Guardian explaining the rise in allergies and that any child can develop them at any time. Mine was 6 when he nearly died. It's a concern for ALL parents. We must act to improve food labelling so sufferers can manage their condition. Please please sign my campaign. It only takes a moment. Let this poor girls death be the last.

Have you a link to sign the petition as I will sign

Https:you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/factual-accurate-food-labelling
It’s on 38 Degrees. Thank you SO much

I wonder if there's any way the NHS could prescribe alternatives if the manufacturing issues continue?

They will, I have an alternative brand.

But where it is really tricky is for schools, where if all the staff have had epipen training, then they are unable to use another brand.

I think it’s all too easy to look for somewhere to pin the blame. Sometimes it’s just a collision of unhappy circumstances. Pret have made changes, others will follow, more information has come to light about the effectiveness of epipens, hopefully there are lessons being learned from this which will save lives.

I’m less comfortable with the parents working out their grief in the public eye. On the news today the father reported how he and his family had been put on the phone one by one and told to say goodbye to their daughter. I really hope they didn’t say “goodbye” to a petrified dying teenager.

He then instructed his mother to go to Pret and buy the exact product his daughter had eaten. She apparently harangued the counter staff about the lack of information about allergens then screamed “you’ve murdered my granddaughter!”

None of this is helpful, least of all to the grieving family, and the media should not be engaging with it. It seems exploitative and wrong.

But where it is really tricky is for schools, where if all the staff have had epipen training, then they are unable to use another brand.

I did worry about that too. The Auvi-Q talks to you though - have you seen it? You pull off the cover and it starts telling you what to do.

Unfortunately I think it is more the legal aspect of it - as EpiPen do the training, that training is only supposed to be applicable to actual EpiPens…..ridiculous really, as there should be general auto injector training.

The telephone calls were when she was in hospital, losing consciousness and actually dying. Her mother was in the departure lounge in Stansted trying to get a flight out to France but she died before she got there.

It’s an awful tragedy. I have long doubted epipens, they don’t have a full dose of Adrenalin for normal adult humans so two doses would only be just over the normal dose anyhow. The needles are tiny so only go into subcutaneous fat half the time. It needs to be intramuscular so that the dose gets into the blood stream quicker.
I also have to say that if I had allergies I would be making my own sandwiches for this situation. You are outside the parameters of normal medical help on a flight.
My husband has IBS. We plan trips/ situations around his bowels! 😐 Dora understand where you are coming from but with allergies you are not a typical person when dining out or grabbing a sandwich. No amount of labelling will make it so because nobody could guarantee 100%whats in your food. If I was in catering I would make a disclaimer clear on that and I’d prefer not to serve you if push came to shove. The consequences are too serious.

That's a cop out isn't it? If that's the law then it needs to be changed.

Very difficult to provide all the information. Imagine in subway having to list every ingredient as they build the sandwich.

And then you can still have cross contamination.

Please can everyone stop saying make your own sandwiches if you are allergic as if it's never occurred to people with allergies to do this, my son has allergies I prepare as much as I can but going through airport security you are not always allowed food through and we have been delayed where we have had to buy food . You cannot always have enough food on you for every eventuality

@BlackLambAndGreyFalcon
I should have been clearer. Of course there needed to be last words, but wouldn’t “I love you” have been better? I hope no-one says goodbye to me on my deathbed. They can save that till I’ve actually gone.

Please can everyone stop saying make your own sandwiches if you are allergic as if it's never occurred to people with allergies to do this, my son has allergies I prepare as much as I can but going through airport security you are not always allowed food through and we have been delayed where we have had to buy food . You cannot always have enough food on you for every eventuality

This is true, but in this case, Natasha apparently just trusted to Pret.

If Pret and other places were to tighten up labelling, they will most likely do so defensively ie label everything ‘may contain traces of nuts’, so people with severe allergies wouldn’t be able to eat their stuff anyway,

A friend of mine runs a free from chocolate company in the US - free from dairy, gluten, nuts, sesame etc. The reality of that is a factory that has none of these items in ever, workers are not allowed to bring food from home in case of accidental contamination. And they have their own distribution lorries. If Pret or M&S etc were to produce guaranteed allergen free food they would have to have separate premises to make them.

Without that you really can’t guarantee no cross contamination or mistakes.

Tighter rules are never going to be a safety blanket and shouldn’t be treated as such.

If Pret and other places were to tighten up labelling, they will most likely do so defensively ie label everything ‘may contain traces of nuts’, so people with severe allergies wouldn’t be able to eat their stuff anyway

Better people with severe allergies don’t eat their stuff than die because they don’t label ingredients correctly.

Similar story in Wholefoods. They didn't label their Mochi to say it contains cashew milk, and a woman died.

www.allergicliving.com/2018/09/19/after-tragedy-brother-and-mother-are-on-a-mission-for-food-allergy-education/

I am now having conversations with my 15 year old about how you can't trust big companies like Pret and Whole Foods to make the effort to label their products unless they are legally forced to do so.

Better people with severe allergies don’t eat their stuff than die because they don’t label ingredients correctly.

No shit. But that’s not the point.

Take the linked case of Joanna -

According to her brother -

Like many people with food allergies, he doesn’t think Joanna paid much heed to precautionary warnings, presuming (as he used to) that these were just blanket food industry legal disclaimers. “If she saw a ‘may contain’ sticker, it didn’t bother her because we thought everything had to say ‘may contain’ nowadays legally.”

The store had the following food allergy warning:

”Despite taking every precaution, we cannot guarantee that our items are free of trace amounts of peanuts, tree nuts, soy, dairy, eggs, wheat, fish, shellfish, sesame seeds or allergens.”

So there were allergy warnings instore, just not on the particular item.

So there were allergy warnings instore, just not on the particular item.

The particular item had nothing on it to point out that it contained tree nuts.

This would be illegal if it was a packaged food, but it was an in-store display.

It's a product that's usually made with dairy ice cream but in this case was made with cashew nut milk ice cream.

Wholefoods had had this pointed out to them before by other customers who had been hospitalised by severe allergic reactions (one in my local store) but had chosen not to add any clearer labelling.

I think they accept they made a mistake, now those particular items are labelled.

But the fact is they warned that all their items could contain traces of tree nuts.

So if anyone wanted to be completely safe, they wouldn’t shop there.