Flush known food allergens dangerous for kids

Flush when parents and caregivers are aware of infants' food allergies and have been instructed in avoiding potentially dangerous trigger foods, allergic reactions still occur, the result of both accidental and non-accidental exposures, a study finds.

   Accidental exposures from unintentional ingestion, label-reading errors and cross-contamination resulted in 87% of 834 allergic reactions to milk, eggs or peanuts in the study, reported in today's Pediatrics.

Non-accidental exposures resulted in 13% of reactions. It's not clear why caregivers would purposely give a child a known allergen, maybe "to see if (the child) has outgrown an allergy, or how allergic he is," says lead author David Fleischer, a pediatric allergist at National Jewish Health in Denver.