AAAAI: Travel Difficult for People with Food Allergies

WASHINGTON, March 16 -- When members of a family have food allergies, vacation planning often requires significant effort to minimize risks, researchers said here.

Action Points

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• Explain to interested patients that families with food-allergic members are accustomed to having reactions occur unexpectedly when they eat unfamiliar foods.



• Explain that anaphylactic reactions are life threatening without immediate treatment.



• Note that this study was published as an abstract and presented at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More than 90% of such families have packed their own food when they go on vacation, and have mapped out locations of hospitals at their destinations, reported Scott Sicherer, M.D., of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology meeting here.

His data emerged from a survey of 410 attendees of conferences sponsored by the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, a nonprofit advocacy and support group.

"Food allergies limit where and how families with food-allergic individuals vacation," Dr. Sicherer said.

Although 94% of respondents said they still take vacations, about three-quarters indicated that they chose destinations on the basis of available medical care.

Some 80% have avoided cruises for that reason, the survey found.

In addition, 90% have not left the U.S., in part because of issues involving the availability of medical care and in part because of unfamiliar foods that might trigger reactions.

Food allergies affecting participants' families included peanuts (85%), tree nuts (69%), egg (48%), dairy (45%), and shellfish (24%).

Other findings from the survey included:

• 65% have tried to avoid air travel, primarily because of potential peanut exposure
• 53% have requested special airplane accommodations
• 65% carried extra medical documentation
• 67% obtained extra epinephrine injectors
• 51% ate most meals in their own rooms
• 86% arranged for special meals at restaurants
• 82% said arranging special meals was not difficult

Dr. Sicherer said that for families with members who have food allergies leaving home means "you're talking about a lot of detailed information to deal with, a lot of potential anxiety with everything that goes on all day. It's like living in a minefield."

Vacation planning is just one of the many effects food allergies have on quality of life, he said.

Robert Wood, M.D., a pediatric allergist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, a discussant at the session who was not involved in the study, commented that food allergy incidence in children, and eventually in adults as well, appears to be rising.

Food allergy "may be a different disease now," he said. Some allergies that formerly seemed to be confined mainly to children are now persisting more frequently into adulthood, he said.