Woman Gets Involved, Helps Spur Recall

The Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA)

October 29, 2009

A love of pecan ice cream—and the haunting memory of a friend’s allergic reaction to peanuts—prompted a Baton Rouge, LA, woman to help spur Monday’s voluntary recall of a specific lot of pecan ice cream tainted with peanuts.

Crystal Johnson, an assistant professor in LSU’s Department of Environmental Sciences, had a bad day last Wednesday, so on her way home from work she stopped to pick up one of her favorite treats—Dove’s Caramel Pecan Perfection ice cream. At home, she dug in, but something wasn’t right. “I kept getting a taste of peanuts,” she said.

At first, she thought the company had substituted less-expensive peanuts for the pecans, but then she checked the label. “There was no mention at all of peanuts,” she said. “It must have just been a mistake.”

Her experience, however, taught her this could be a deadly mistake. While in graduate school, she had gone out to dinner with a friend who accidentally ate some peanuts. Her friend ended up in the emergency room that night and almost died from the allergic reaction. “That stays with you,” Johnson said about the experience.

So, after tasting the peanuts in the ice cream, she e-mailed the company, a Baton Rouge allergy specialist and the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network about what she’d found. The network suggested she contact the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

She made the call to the FDA on Thursday. By Monday, an investigator was at her house. That afternoon, the company announced its voluntary recall of the product. “It’s really amazing how quickly this happened,” she said. “When I saw the product was recalled, that was the end of it for me.”

The company news release says the product is unsafe only to those people with a food allergy to peanuts. The recall involved lot number 931AB5YN07 and was distributed in 19 states, including Louisiana.

It was interesting to see how the recall process works and to see it worked as well as it did, Johnson said, praising Mars Snackfood US for addressing the problem so quickly. She said she was told that six other people across the country also called the FDA to report the matter.

Natalie Guidry, who handles public affairs with the FDA, said she couldn’t comment on a specific ongoing case but said any time there is a consumer complaint that deals with potential allergic reactions, it becomes a priority.

Prem Menon, a physician and founder of the Asthma, Allergy and Immunology Center in Baton Rouge, received Johnson’s e-mail about the ice cream and responded as quickly as he could because he also saw it as a potentially deadly problem.

Although only 1% of the population might be allergic to peanuts, that allergic reaction can be deadly, he said. As little as 1/200th of a peanut can cause a reaction, he said. “It can be very, very dangerous.”

It’s not very common for an adult to suddenly develop an allergic reaction to peanuts, but it can happen, he said, adding that’s it more likely that children develop the allergy, and of those, only about 20% outgrow the allergy by they time they reach age 5. “The only treatment for food allergy is avoidance,” he said.