Posted on 07/18/2018 5:26:29 AM PDT by SMGFan
WESTON, Florida -- A Florida mother blames the death of her 15-year-old daughter on what she calls confusing packaging for Reese's Chips Ahoy cookies.
In a July 12 Facebook post, Kellie Travers-Stafford wrote that her daughter Alexi mistakenly ate one of the cookies at a friend's house despite her peanut allergy, because the top of the familiar red packaging was peeled back, hiding the Reese's label.
She says Alexi felt tingling in her mouth on June 25 and they administered two Epipens but Alexi quickly went into anaphylactic shock, stopped breathing and died within an hour and a half of eating the cookie.
"As a mother who diligently taught her the ropes of what was okay to ingest and what was not, I feel lost and angry because she knew her limits and was aware of familiar packaging, she knew what "safe" was," Travers-Stafford said in the post. "A small added indication on the pulled back flap on a familiar red package wasn't enough to call out to her that there was "peanut product" in the cookies before it was too late."
Travers-Stafford, who lives in Weston, which is near Fort Lauderdale, said she is sharing Alexi's story to "spread awareness."
(Excerpt) Read more at abc7ny.com ...
Not reading the ingredients is the same as crossing a busy street without looking both ways. Just like it’s not the driver who hit the person walking out into traffic, it’s not Reese’s fault she died. It’s her fault and her mama needs to realize that.
I propose a constitutional amendment to limit the proliferation of peanuts and peanut products.
Combined with common sense restrictions on licensed trained users. /s
This ‘child’ as 15. Plenty OLD enough to actually READ the label. She knew the danger. Sorry she took a shortcut, but if the Mom sues, & I were on the jury, I would not let her have a penny from the cookie maker.
Your date knew she had a seafood allergy but ordered lobster???
Never admit to dating such a ninny.
My daughter was at a routine checkup for her one year old, and the pediatrician asked what baby eats. Daughter rattled off a list of things including peanut butter. The pediatrician went nuts. lol Daughter shrugged her off and said baby had no issues. Grands were visiting here recently, and I have to say those children eat anything and everything except fish. They have been brainwashed by both of their parents to not eat fish. lol But no issues with peanut butter.
I prefer ham and cheese, anyway. :-)
But, in my case it was a pretty simple fix. If someone wanted an entire Fortune 500 company to change the way they do business mostly just to accommodate their desperate need for attention ....as we've seen countless times on FR.... Meh. I'm a whole lot less sympathetic.
I have family members and friends with severe reactions to various things. My wife also went to school with a youth who died because he was told there was no shellfish in the stuff that looked like cole slaw. If your food allergy is so severe you might die from one bite, open packaged food and food at other people’s places has to be off limits. Even packaged store food has to be checked carefully. Blue Diamond does no longer allows any other nuts to be processed in its almond plant, as there was someone who had a severe reaction after having an almond that was processed on equipment that also processed walnuts. (possibly another brand).
I don’t see that the mom is wanting to sue. She is warning others to be more cautious. She thought she had taught her daughter to be cautious. Daughter did not look completely at the package. It is a tragedy. I’ve almost purchased the Reese’s variety of Chewy chips ahoy cookies myself. I wouldn’t do it on purpose because that sounds nasty to me. But my children would eat them.
A 15 year old is maybe more stupid than a six year old. I know. I have teenagers. Some are more naive than others. Some are bigger risk takers than others. Some are brilliant and stupid at the same time.
They are now ‘vaccinating ‘ kids until they are 19 !!!
Dengue fever-—Lassa fever-—all kinds of things !!! Scare tactics on the parents & the kids.
My theory is we're so over-protective of infants, with regards to germs, that their immune systems don't develop properly.
My wife of approximately 30 years is highly allergic to seafood. The problem is that restaurants typically fry fish on the same grill that they fry other foods on. Fast food places typically use the same oil to fry French fries with that they use to fry fish with. Other times ingredients like Worcestershire which contain seafood are added to foods that you wouldn't normally suspect. This morning she is still suffering from problems from eating some “fishy” tasting steak nachos that we got from Taco Bell yesterday.
Fortunately, most of the time like this morning she just ends up with swelling in various places, open sores in her mouth and welts in her nose, on her lips, face and other places. But on occasion she has severe breathing difficulties. She once had a reaction where she stopped breathing and came back to consciousness in the hospital. The people she was with presumed that she was not going to make it.
So it is definitely a major hassle and sometimes can be very scary. She loved seafood as a kid and did not start to have problems until she was a young adult. There are various reasons that an allergy like this can develop, not all are well understood. In some ways it is amazing that she has lived as long as she has.
This happens to teens with allergies a lot. They are a bit older and don’t have Mom hanging around querying anything headed for their mouths. I know one guy who at his teen job picked up a cookie left on the break room table and ate it without thinking. Driving home he went into serious allergy attack so crawled out to the sidewalk, gave himself an epi shot, and called his dad. Which saved his life.
Teens want to be like normal, and they don’t 100% trust parents that say how dangerous eating casually is.
Even I, a fully grown adult with a new strong allergy to one specific nut, sometimes I go over scenarios in my mind to scare myself, how to make SURE I refuse to eat some treat someone made at their home without asking if the offending nut is in there (because I don’t even carry an epipen). And I check all ingredient lists when I buy stuff. But teens like to live freely and a bit dangerously (mostly because they don’t understand how random “danger” can be).
There appear to be at least a couple of issues:
1) “Peanut allergies” includes anyone who tests positive for said allergy, including everything from those who would die at exposure to a trace contact with peanut proteins, to those who while testing positive can eat peanuts with impunity. A friend of mine is in-between: He has peanut allergies, but eats peanuts regularly - having to limit himself to a couple of PBJs a day or risk coughing a bit. Most who test positive simply don’t risk it, even if they are not actually symptomatic or are only minimally so.
2) There appears to be an actual increase in serious peanut allergies - as well as allergies in general. The cause is hotly debated. It seems too dramatic an increase to be purely genetic.
It is surprising to most to find out that peanut oil does not have the proteins that trigger peanut allergies.
“Images of the packaging all clearly have a Reese’s PEANUT BUTTER CUP broken in half so you can clearly see the PEANUT BUTTER inside.”
May contain peanuts.
As opposed to the veterinary profession, which has severely cut down on recommended vaccinations and the frequency with which they're given. They've noticed an association between over-vaccination and auto-immune diseases (and some cancers).
Take them fishing and see how fast that changes.
Few people are allergic to Goldenrod, even though many people say they are. In general, they are actually allergic to ragweed, which blooms at the same time - but the goldenrod is much brighter and more visible.
...So as you surmise, you could be allergic to something associated with the Cedar groves, rather than the Cedar itself.
Thankfully, being exposed 24/7 to whatever it is is building an immunity.
They say eating poison ivy will make you immune to it. Uh, no thanks.
It is true. But she was a fun person with other great qualities that compensated. People often think “just a little bit wont hurt” or “just thismonce won’t hurt.”
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