The parents of teenager Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who died after eating a Pret a Manger baguette, today urged the Government and food firms to 'wake up' to 'how serious food allergies are'.
Why them? Why not parents of children and pharmacists? Because in this story they seem equally culpable...
Nadim and Tanya Ednan-Laperouse spoke out while attending the inquest into the death of Hannah Jacobs, 13, who suffered catastrophic reaction after a single sip of a Costa Coffee hot chocolate. The couple who founded The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation said they were 'devastated' to learn of the case and added: 'How many more children must die before we start taking food allergy seriously?'
Who is that 'we'? Well, maybe start with this girl's own mother:
On the first day of the inquest at East London Coroner's Court, Hannah's mother, Abimbola Duyile, recalled the moments that led to the tragedy. She had warned staff about her daughter's allergies, she said, apologising to the barista for 'being a pain' after requesting the milk steamer was cleaned to ensure traces of cow's milk were eliminated.
Now, Reader, like me, you may well be thinking that if you have a life-threatening food allergy, you'd be mad to eat anything you haven't personally prepared, or observed being made in front of you.
And this girl appears to have been the same, reportedly preparing her own food and drink in the main. So why did she take the risk on this occasion?
Ms Duyile said Hannah had enjoyed a soya hot chocolate at Costa on several occasions before, having been convinced by her mother to try a hot drink there.
Why would you...? I mean...to trust foreign staff who might not fully understand the risk seems crazy, does it not?
Yet Costa employee Ana Sanz, who was an assistant manager at Costa franchise in Barking at the time of Hannah's death but was not working until later that day, admitted to the court that she had used Google Translate to help her complete allergy training, as her first language is Spanish. She suggested that other employees she worked with may have also done the same.
*sigh* The employee who took the order, one Urmi Akter, was supported at the inquest herself by a Bengali interpreter. You couldn't make it up, could you?
Roughly 10 minutes after being served the drink in February last year, Hannah took her first sip and almost immediately began vomiting, according to her mother's statement. Ms Duyile then rushed her daughter across the road to a pharmacy, where she asked for antihistamines which had previously worked to relieve her allergic symptoms. However, Hannah complained that her chest was becoming 'tight and painful' and she was struggling to breathe. A pharmacist administered an auto-injector filled with adrenaline (also known as Epipen), but it contained half the dose of medication recommended for teenagers and adults.
So despite this seriously life-threatening allergy, she didn't have an epi-pen already? Just who is responsible here, because I'm not convinced it's solely the food companies.
