An estimated 150 Americans die each year from severe allergic reactions to food.The Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition has made it a high priority to boost consumer and food industry awareness of food allergens. As part of these efforts, the FDA is conducting food allergen education programs for consumers and industry. The agency also is developing a strategy for clear, easy-to-understand labeling of food allergens.
 The only way today to treat food allergies is to avoid the foods that trigger reactions. But this method is not completely safe. Even the most diligent label-readers and ingredient-checkers likely will be accidentally exposed to proteins that extract an allergic response at a certain rate. That's why individuals who likely to have severe enough anaphylactic reactions should wear medical alert bracelets or necklaces and carry a syringe of adrenaline (epinephrine) obtained by prescription from their physicians. Anaphylactic allergic reactions can be fatal even when they begin with mild symptoms such as a tingling in the mouth and throat or gastrointestinal discomfort. Antihistamines and bronchodilators are also used to treat less severe symptoms.
The government should help people with food allergies. The only effective way of helping is proper labeling. In most developed countries governments inspect food manufacturers marking all allergens. Government also demands using “plain language” on the labels. They want to decrease the number of scientific terms and to increase the number of commonly understandable words. An example of "plain language" is using the word "milk" in a product's ingredient list as well as the less familiar "caseinate" or using "eggs" in addition to "albumin."
While inspecting the producers specially trained workers are used. Also government supports the conducting of the seminars where the methods of non-allergic food producing are discussed. On such seminars not only the manufacturing ideas are shared but doctors are also invited to help with making up the lists of allergens. So everything is done to make it understandable even for a small child where he may meet the dangerous substances. However not much is done. And it is not completely safe to believe what the labels say.
There two major problems about food labeling. The first is not diligent labeling. Unfortunately the manufacturers do not pay much attention to the problems of those who suffer from allergies and do not mark all the dangerous ingredients. The second is the illiteracy of those who suffer from allergies. They do not understand the scientific terms mentioned on the products and do not know whether the product is dangerous for them or not.
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