Living with EpiPen

A fancy-sounding name for a life-saving shot, isn’t it? EpiPen (short for epinephrine), the self-injecting food allergy drug, dominated Wall Street headlines, with Mylan, the drug company that manufactures it, under attack a week ago, when it announced a 500-percent price increase. Among parents, worries ballooned about their children dying instantly of anaphylaxis, as well as adults constantly threatened by it, and schools required to have it, in case of emergencies. 

Sixteen-year old Alicia, Janice’s oldest of six children who live a floor below us in our apartment, could be one of those endangered. Never without a pair—though among the other children in school who might not be aware they, too, have a condition that constricts breathing or cause a drop in blood pressure with shock, which could result in loss of consciousness and even death—Alicia has survived her severe allergy to nuts, and witnessed how a shot from the school clinic, has saved others.

A health condition taken so seriously that as outlined in the Food Allergy Research Education (FARE) website, laws and regulations in both the US and Canada have been passed like “…the right of students to self-carry epinephrine…to laws outlining requirements for the creation of food allergy guidelines for schools, and laws on labeling foods for allergens…” Further underlining its seriousness, such condition “…may be considered a disability under federal laws…”

Based on clinically documented cases, Health Canada, reports approximately 1.8 million Canadians have food allergies while according to a research published in McGill Medicine as letters to the editor, self reported incidences estimate between 2 percent and 10 percent of the American population. The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology further describes such figures as “alarming…accompanied by increasingly severe reactions as reflected in increasing hospitalization rates for food allergic symptoms,” especially nut allergies.

Could we throw in food peeves familiar to us, Filipinos, which could simply be abhorrence for certain dishes, fruits, or pastries because of their taste, flavor, or texture, to the same list? Not really. Except for some cases of shellfish allergy mentioned in articles on Philippine food allergies, findings reveal that Asian children seem less prone to such life-threatening conditions, unless by accident, these, too, turn deadly.

Even if one claims, like one of my uncles, that when you eat tiesa, it strangely causes dizziness—hence, you faint and possibly hit your head on the pavement—it doesn’t make it, and neither would impromptu symptoms of illness triggered by the mere sight or smell of say, tinapa, among mothers-to-be.

No known cure has been found—to avoid the allergen remains the only prescription. While Janice has made Alicia’s allergy the rule in the family’s diet for life—the other children would never know how nuts taste like—Jan’s meals, which must be gluten-free (protein in wheat), has made of her quite a genius in baking her own loaves and scones from numerous varieties of grains for which she scours Asian and European groceries.

Not surprising then, that gluten-free products have since fueled a global market projected to reach a value of $6,206.2 million, growing at an annual rate of 10.2 percent by 2018, with North America contributing to 59 percent of it. With rice as the Filipinos’ and all Asians’ staple food, with its variations in noodles, flour, and beverages, as well as our culinary traditions that include root crops and fruit vegetables, hence, nut-and-gluten-free, indeed, proves to be a blessing. Shouldn’t we fill in a need for alternatives, then?

While a few Filipino, and more Chinese restaurants skitter across cityscapes here in North America, as well, most chain groceries now also feature rice and vegetable snacks, among them, bean chips from Iloilo, still, I believe we could compete with more. What about puto seco and uraro? Both gluten and nut-free, Filipinos could vastly share their blessing. Meanwhile, Mylan, in response to the outcry, has announced the launching of a cheaper generic EpiPen.