The goal of the Canadian Anaphylaxis Awareness Initiative is to raise greater awareness of severe, life threatening allergies on Parliament Hill and in the Ottawa bureaucracy.
Did you know this about allergic disease?
There is an epidemic of allergies like asthma, hay fever, eczema, food and pet allergies and life-threatening anaphylaxis facing the industrialized world, and Canada is near the top of the list of nations facing a growing problem. Nearly one in three Canadians now suffers some form of allergic illness. The health care and socio-economic costs are huge and the potential impact on our next generation is extreme (AllerGen, n.d.).
Did you know this about food allergies?
“Between 6 and 8 per cent of Canadians have food allergies, says Dr. Ann Clarke, an allergist and leading researcher at the McGill University Health Centre. In human terms, that means up to one in 13 Canadians is food allergic” (Gagne, 2010).
“These figures are calculated from the nationwide SCAAALAR survey (which stands for Surveying Canadians to Assess the Prevalence of Common Food Allergies and Attitudes Towards Food Labelling and Risk), on which Clarke is a lead investigator. SCAAALAR is the first formal national tally of food allergies in Canada, with detailed information from 10,000 individuals” (Gagne, 2010).
