Wow (actually, two big wows)
First off, thanks to Sean Parker (he of Napster fame and fortune) for his massive $24 million gift to establish the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research at Stanford University. This gift from Parker, who has food allergies himself, will fund for research, outreach and trials, and the new center will be led by Dr. Kari Nadeau, a leading allergist who was profiled in a great New York Times piece last year.
In other big news, the BBC reports that restaurants and take out shops in Europe “will be required by law to tell customers if their food contains ingredients known to trigger allergies.” This is huge, huge news for food allergic people, since dining out is absolutely the trickiest part about having a food allergy (as compared to cooking for yourself or purchasing food in supermarkets that is clearly labeled). The game of telephone between customer, server, kitchen and back again can be a tough one, and often restaurants make mistakes with cross-contamination, or the front of house doesn’t know what’s in a certain dish. I’m sure this will be hard for the restaurants, so know that me and other families with food allergic members are very grateful.
Two nice pieces of news, just in the time for the holidays!