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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2006;295:880.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

The Food and Drug Administration is now requiring food labels to clearly state if a product contains any ingredients that contain protein derived from the eight major allergenic foods—milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, or soybeans. The agency estimates that about 2% of adults and 5% of infants and young children in the United States have food allergies and approximately 150 individuals die each year in the United States because of allergic reactions to food.

Foods labels must now state the presence of ingredients with proteins derived from peanuts or 7 other major allergenic foods. (Photo credit: Alice Welch/USDA)

Manufacturers must clearly state the presence of these foods in the list of ingredients or state "contains" followed by the name of the source of the food allergen after or adjacent to the list of ingredients. For example, if a product contains the milk-derived protein, . . . [Full Text of this Article]