06/26/2025
is back and today it's about the reintroduction of bill HR 3821 to the US House of Representatives. If passed, the bill would require labeling for the Top 9 allergens AND gluten on prescription and over-the-counter drugs.
From personal experience, I know it's an absolute terrible position to be in to see your kid suffering physically and/or mentally, knowing that a medication prescribed by a doctor should help their pain, but then having absolutely NO SUPPORT from the dr, the pharmacist, or even the Internet when it comes to tracking down the allergen status of any particular drug. I can't even tell you the number of hours I've spent on the phone with pharmaceutical customer service reps trying to determine if a drug is safe for my kid. And these folks try to help, but they're often in another country or don't work weekends. Illnesses don't stop on weekends. 🫤
Sometimes, you get lucky with a clear answer, but too often, it's a roll of the dice and we just cross our fingers and hope for the best. For us, that means waiting a bit to see if our kid gets violently ill for 8 hours... but for others with an anaphylactic reaction to an allergen, this roll of the dice is just too dangerous to risk. It's not fair that allergen labeling is not required by law when it comes to medications.
Understand my frustration? Want to do something? Here's how you can help--
"Contact your lawmaker via Congress.gov (https://www.congress.gov/) about supporting the ADINA bill. As well, FARE has resources (https://www.foodallergy.org/take-action/how-advocate) about letter-writing to advocate for the proposed legislation. It is also encouraging the sharing of personal experiences with allergens in medication by emailing [email protected]."
You can read more about HR 3821 via the link in my bio.
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