I am simply stunned at the number of food allergy deaths are now being posted. THIS HAS TO STOP (insert stern disgusted face right here). Young, 14 year old Giovanni Cipriano died last week after spending 2 weeks in a coma after suffering anaphylactic shock from accidentally eating food with peanut. My thoughts, prayers and wish for peace go out to his entire family and community who have been effected by this horrible tragedy. Friends have established a HELP GIOVANNI CIPRIANO GoFundMe account and are collecting donations to cover medical costs. If you go to this site, be ready: it was created while he was still alive and in a coma. That broke my heart to see folks rally only to lose the battle. His parents had also established a facebook page, Love for Giovanni where folks have been posting photos and leaving their sentiments. Simply heartbreaking-another horrible food allergy death.
photo courtesy of HELP GIOVANNI CIPRIANO GoFundMe
Two things are bubbling up inside of me right now. Our food allergy community collectively screams and cries every time we learn of a child dying senselessly from a food allergen. I say senseless since so often the death could have possibly been avoided if the EpiPen® or Auvi-Q® was administered promptly or if proper education was in place. Back to the bubbling up, there just seem to be two huge lessons here…
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- Education. Was Giovanni’s family educated and carried an EpiPen® or Auvi-Q® ? On one facebook posting they mentioned that Benedryl® had always worked before. So, did they not carry an EpiPen® or Auvi-Q® or did they delay administration. Did they understand the severity of his food allergy? Even though we all take that invisible vow to educate our community are we also educating within our food allergy community?
- Cure. We simply must find a cure.
- How do we find the cure? Okay, I added an extra point, but how do we figure out who to fund in terms of find a cure. Here is my goal: I will do some research and share back regarding the various outlets and pathways for funding a cure. I am on the American Lung Association’s Southwest Regional board and we scrutinize every penny donated and how to use it the max–including funding research. Therefore, I want to make sure that the same is being done with other non-profits committed to finding cures too. I will report back as soon as I finish my research regarding which organizations might be worthy of our donations and time in regarding to find a cure for life threatening food allergies. If you have suggestions or items for me to check out, please email me or add a comment below.
Grass and Sky photo courtesy of Winnond via Freedigitalphotos.net
Rest in Peace Giovanni. We all pray your family finds strength as they move forward with you living in heaven.
p.s. Life threatening food allergies: you make us all really mad and we plan on smashing you into dust, but, until then, we will fight the good fight. We plan on winning.
One of the hardest things I find about managing both life threatening food allergies and asthma is talking to others. I hate to be the one that might be perceived as demanding, pushing or for asking too much. What I now know, fourteen years later, is that honest, clear information presented with kindness works!..
Saddened and heart-sick at the same time. This strikes a nerve and hits so close to home with 2 teens in our family affected by food allergies and asthma. Every time we read about a life cut short because of food allergies, it brings to the surface so many questions. How can we prevent this from happening again and again? Have we not proof enough that food allergies are life threatening and require immediate access to epinephrine? What do we need to do to raise the level of awareness?
A good start might be to bring public service announcements and advertisements into EVERY home, have our pediatricians and allergists insist that every person diagnosed carry epinephrine and bring the cost of epinephrine injectors down to be more affordable for everyone.
Dana,
Amen! I wish every single pediatrician and allergist would insist on Epinephrine! These risks of not carrying epinephrine have been proven deadly. How many more deaths will this take? I can’t image what Giovanni’s family is feeling tonight. I can’t imagine the horror. This simply has to stop.
This does have to STOP! 🙁 I can’t even imagine 🙁
See you in Vegas! 🙂
Cindy
It does-I just get sicker and sicker each time we hear of these tragedies! Cindy, are you arriving on Friday? A few of us are meeting for dinner at 7pm at the South Point. Join us?
This can STOP when parents who have children with known food allergies responsibly READ EVERY BIT OF INFORMATION/INGREDIENTS listed ON EVERY SINGLE THING that comes into the house!!! TRAIL MIX has two basic ingredients; RAISINS AND PEANUTS!! This teenager knew he was severely allergic to peanuts. I cannot understand why he didn’t check the ingredients. His death was senseless.
Giovanni accidentally ate the trail mix which contained peanuts? This incident was tragic but my question per the story if the young boy was allergic to peanuts since he was a baby, why would the mother not make sure anything he ate was free of peanuts? Better yet, don’t buy these products. At any rate my prayers go out to the family.
If you know your child has a food allergy, make sure you have several epipens and know where they are located in the home and have them readily available in case of an emergency. Hell, have back ups in the car and purse. My gosh. Not blaming them but these allergies are so deadly, I WOULD have these stacked some where- though they do expire..no where the significance in getting in the habit of reading food ingredients on packages. Its a shame this happened. Families typically take precautions on folks around them eating peanuts near their food-allergy prone kids,Its sad the ones within the home did not double check.
Sorry but this could have saved his life.
I am sorry this happened. It really upsets me that an epipen was not attached to a kitchen cupboard or somewhere that is readily located and secure. In addition, call 9-11. they will expeditiously bring the pen that is not located securely at your house. that way you do not have to run red lights risking more lives. Simply reading labels with great understanding of derivatives is essential. One can easily know certain kinds of foods like trail mix very often has peanuts or is made in a facility that deals with peanuts. All caregivers and family members need to be educated a lot better than what i guess is going on. I desperately feel for the boy that he himself was not taught to read labels either.
This was a totally preventable situation. This family was lucky enough to know this child had food allergies and yet they were still totally unprepared to handle it somehow. I have a peanut allergic child and have always taught him to READ the package and to avoid certain foods like trail mix or granola bars that has a higher possibility of containing peanuts. I also cannot imagine “not being able to find” an epi-pen. My two nut allergic kids carry them on their person all the time. For anyone who is worried about the cost of Epi-pens, visit their website – they currently have coupons that help cover the cost of this needed medication. If you have a food allergy, you should not be without this life saving med even for a moment.
I am so relieved to see so many people as irate about this story as I am. I grew up with food allergies and my kids have them, so I have a level of comfort and knowledge that may be a bit beyond the usual – but I just couldn’t grasp HOW in the world these parents could act like this was somehow a giant surprise for them. I bet their allergist is beyond livid because when parents do these things it makes their doctors look like they never did their jobs.
If he went from age 18 months to age 14 without a reaction I could see his parents and himself becoming lazy when it comes to reading labels and remembering what to do in an emergency. My son has a severe peanut allergy. He recently ate peanut candy by accident. I gave him the epipen and he got to the er in time.
I don’t blame the parents they were probably not told of the severity of the allergy or not educated correctly. We all make mistakes with our kids.