The Washington Post reports that President Biden on Friday "signed into law a new measure that designates sesame as the ninth major food allergy and ramps up allergy research, enacting a bipartisan attempt to address marked growth in certain deadly allergies.
"The Food Allergy Safety, Treatment, Education and Research (Faster) Act passed the Senate in March and the House of Representatives this month. It received bipartisan support."
The story notes that over the past 20 years, "life-threatening childhood food allergies have risen steadily, growing by about 4 percent per year to afflict 32 million Americans, according to research by Northwestern University, McKinsey & Company, and Food Allergy Research and Education, a nonprofit." There are, the Post writes, 1.6 million Americans with sesame allergies, and the new law "will require foods containing sesame to be clearly labeled by January 2023. But perhaps more significant, the legislation says the Department of Health and Human Services must prioritize regular reviews of promising food allergy treatments and research."
