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A new report from Blue Cross Blue Shield looked at allergy diagnoses and at emergency room visits for anaphylaxis from 2010 to 2016 among their subscribers, who include 9.6 million children 18 and under all over the country. The report showed an increase in the incidence of children being diagnosed as “at risk” for anaphylaxis over the course of those seven years. And correspondingly, the rate of emergency room visits for anaphylaxis more than doubled, to 3.5 visits per 10,000 children in 2016 from 1.4 in 2010.
Of those emergency room visits, 47 percent were attributed to specific food allergies, largely peanuts and tree nuts and seeds. The other 53 percent were attributed either to unknown foods or “to other unspecified causes.” (Because the study was done by examining insurance claims, the information is conveyed by billing codes; some codes specify “anaphylactic reaction due to shellfish,” for example, but others just say, “anaphylactic shock, unspecified.”)
Dr. Trent Haywood, the chief medical officer of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, said that one reason for doing the study was “to make parents aware before the situation occurs.” Alerting parents seemed particularly crucial, he said, because of the recent controversy about the high cost of EpiPens, the epinephrine autoinjectors commonly prescribed for children at risk, so they have emergency treatment available at home and at school — and wherever they go.
