We have good news for the food allergy community! On April 14, 2021 the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Food Allergy Safety, Treatment, Education and Research (FASTER) Act. The FASTER Act, also known as H.R. 2117, is significant legislation that includes a number of food allergy measures.
This act will now:
- Make sesame a top allergen
- Accelerate data on food-allergic disease
- Allocate funding to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC) to gather disease prevalence data
- Issue a directive to study the consumer costs of food allergies
- Provide support for food allergy-related drug development.
The legislation is based on proposals from a 2016 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine called “Finding a Path to Safety in Food Allergy.” The 2016 report is a landmark study that recognized food allergies as a critical public safety issue. The non-profit FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education) was a key funder of the study. It involved the work of 15 committee members and had 11 sponsors, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Food and Nutrition Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Other sponsors were from industry and allergy groups, including the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA).
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This measure will improve the lives of millions of Americans with food allergies. “There is nothing more important to the food allergy community than ensuring that the FASTER Act is put into law,” said Lisa Gable, chief executive officer of FARE. “On behalf of the nearly 1.6 million Americans who are allergic to sesame, I thank Representative Doris Matsui (D-CA-6) and Representative Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10) for championing this critical piece of bipartisan legislation and now look forward to President Biden signing it into law.”
If you or a loved one suffered a severe allergic reaction due to mislabeling, give Allen & Allen a call today for a free consultation, at 1-866-388-1307.
