SIO394: New Law Makes Sesame 9th Allergen. Companies Are Now Adding Sesame to Foods To Get Around It

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:17 Thomas: And welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 394, I'm Thomas Smith, and today's expert is none other than Lydia Smith. How are you doing?

0:00:26 Lydia: Hi. Pretty good. I'm an interesting expert today. A sad one. Yeah.

0:00:30 Thomas: Yeah, I this uh, this gonna be a tough one, um, do even begin? First off, hello, hi everybody, thanks for joining us, uh, let's start with happy bonus reminders that Hangout is coming pretty quickly in about a week, October 26th at p .m. Pacific, p .n. Eastern, and that's for the top two tiers of patrons. We're going to do a Zoom. Lydia will be there.

0:00:54 Lydia: I will.

0:00:54 Thomas: Current expert, today's expert, Lydia Smith will be here. Lydia Smith, I'll be there, and after the Q &A and the talking and all that, we're going going to play games with the Top Top Patrons. I already got plenty of signups. Can't wait to play some Codenames.

0:01:07 Lydia: So fun.

0:01:08 Thomas: Maybe Lydia and I will be the Codemasters and we'll see who win. I don't know. We'll see. You're way better at the game, so it'll be fun. Then also, seriously awful movies, Good Will Hunting coming up also right around then. Good reasons. Plus, avoid the bullshit auto ads. And if you can't afford to become a patron, by all means, please skip those those ads. But if you'd like to save yourself having to do that, patreon.com. Okay. All those more fun things aside. A lot of causes in the world and things to care about and all that.

But us personally, Lydia and I, all that takes a backseat when when someone's trying to murder our child. And so as much as this is a little bit particular to us, today's episode, I it's important. And it's something that also has to do with, government and trying to get things done and what can even happen under the best of circumstances. And when people have good intentions and try to accomplish something thing and how it can go wrong. I mean, there's a lot here. I hope you'll listen because someone's trying to murder our kid and they could

0:01:13 Lydia: Oh, gosh. Yeah, yeah

0:02:15 Thomas: Also be trying to murderer your kid. It's possible you don't even know about this, but that's what we're going to talk about. So where do we want to begin?

0:02:15 Lydia: Well, I guess, um, story, uh, lot of you may know, or some of you anyway may know Arlo has food allergies. The way that we've learned about those is from a very young age. When he was about five months old, he reacted to a peanut butter puff. And we ended up doing skin testing after two reactions to it. He had an immediate reaction in the allergist's office. They marked it as, you are absolutely allergic to peanuts. Also did some testing for tree nuts just to kind of see what those potentials look like for him. And we did some tests and he was cleared for a certain number of tree nuts. And then we actually did a challenge to make it so almond would be safe for him. And he passed that, which was great. And then we also challenged hazelnuts. So Nutella is on the menu. And that's great. Opportunity for the kids.

0:03:14 Thomas: He never eats it. We ought to give him that more.

0:03:16 Lydia: It's true. Dann the next few reactions that he had were all at daycare, which as parent is really, really scary to get a picture on your phone in a phone call you're while in the middle of a workday, like in a meeting, that something is wrong with your kid. The reaction he had was to eggs. They were having breakfast, and he was still in like the infant room. And we did blood testing because he had a variety of foods for breakfast. It wasn't just eggs. It was several things. So they did blood testing for all the foods that were present at breakfast. And egg white and egg yolk both came back very strong as being a reaction. We later also found out that he can't consume it in a baked good either. Some kids are able to eat egg once it's been baked because the protein has been, of broken apart in that method. Arlo, unfortunately.

0:03:23 Thomas: Yeah.

0:04:06 Thomas: Can't emphasize enough how horrifyingly scary this is, uh, you get a picture of like your kid's face exploding, like, like just a giant thing on his face, or, so, or anything. And he gets hives all the time. And you do get used to it. Like, oh, he's having hives again, allergic reaction. And it gets less scary for those smaller ones, but like for the bigger ones, it's never not terrifying. And is this anything that you all should care about? Well, I first want to say that one the hardest things about living in the cruel, awful world that we live in is, uh, many people are mad at us for our kid having an allergy.

0:04:42 Thomas: Um, lot of people, and I said an allergy is a hundred, but that's, that's an awful thing for us to have done, sorry everybody that we did that, apparently we're the, the, we're bad people. Um, really amazing when, don't ask anyone to to do anything different either, it's, get that this is not, not problem. Um, are things that would be nice that, know, you are considerate.

0:04:42 Lydia: Yeah, God.

0:05:02 Thomas: That, that we would appreciate if people do, but like we, we largely, and hear a little interview with our, our little, with expert Arlo later, I mean, we largely just take care of this ourselves. Um, like daycares, think it's great that they accommodate us. Not all of them do. Were looking for daycares. There was one that we had to pass up on, right?

0:05:21 Lydia: Yeah it was was, a daycare I really liked in a lot of ways. And so I, asked them about their allergy policy and they said, well, we don't really have one. And, you know, a lot of schools at the very least say that they're nut-free, because peanut allergies, tree nut allergies are so intense, and this school said, oh, well, you know, we just will, the kids.

0:05:28 Thomas: Yeah.

0:05:39 Lydia: Have Whatever They Bring

0:05:38 Thomas: We just let the allergic ones die and then that weeds it out. Oh, right.

0:05:40 Lydia: Yeah. Um. And they, they said, yeah, you just bring food from home and and the kids sit in Their spot. And I just was like, like, thank you for your time. And left, basically.

0:05:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, and, the thing is, like, as long as we have options available, I don't care if that's some people's fucking business, like whatever, if like, if you're a daycare, it's already hard enough to operate a day care, if your daycare that's like, you we don't want to bother with that. We don't feel like it's our problem, even not, yeah, I don't, I don't know, but also it's not like zero people, um, mean it's eight percent of children, um,

0:05:59 Lydia: Yeah, yeah.

0:06:09 Lydia: The ADA, I think there probably an issue there. I don't know the intricacies of that law. Yeah. -hmm. The United States. I mean, and worldwide, who knows. But does result in 30 ,000 ER visits from anaphylaxis, 2 ,000 hospitalizations and 150 deaths per year. Oh,

0:06:31 Thomas: Yeah, I mean eight percent, you an average class, you that's going, going to be two, three kids. Other thing is that we have three kids, and we've raised all of them the same in the same environment with the same food. And weirdly, one of them has allergies and two of them don't. This isn't a thing we did wrong. Not like, oh, we didn't rub enough peanuts on them. If you'd have done that, I mean, maybe there's some percentage of food allergies that could be that, but we raised them all the same. If anything, if that were the problem, since we've had to rid our house of everything after Arlo, you would expect that Remy will just be allergic to everything, he would be even allergic to just any food, it's just air, oxygen, actually can't even breathe, but no, he has no allergies that we've found yet and he's tried a lot of stuff. So this isn't something that we did um, purpose to inconvenience the world. But if you read, I don't know, any comment on any post anywhere in the entire internet about any of this, uh, this hostility, that's really hard to

0:06:40 Lydia: Mm hmm. Yeah it

0:07:29 Thomas: Stomach and apologies. This is obviously for both of us, a really hard thing to talk about. I'm going to do my best, but, like, when we were researching this, it makes me so upset that I'm, I'm like, oh, can I even do this?

0:07:41 Lydia: Is.

0:07:41 Thomas: Uh, so, uh, I'll do my best, But yeah, it's, it'S really hard. There's something that's like, I mean, imagine if it's just like poison and for your kid, which it is. No, I know. But for everybody who doesn't have an allergy, imagine if people were like, yeah, it's, there might be some foods that have poison, just bring all your own food to everything. The poison that only affects your baby, wouldn't you be like, boy, that's a kind of a frustrating attitude, like, couldn't you help us a little? Like, if there's times where it's like, hey, we could just as easily sub in the non -poison for only your kid and nobody will care, like, it makes no difference in this one instance, like, is that hard? Like, is that, that big of a deal? I that that's was one of the toughest ones because sun butter is a really cool substitute to peanut butter. It tastes really good. It'S made from sunflowers. And that was the first major, like, oh my God, this is scary because They gave Arlo sun butter, and this was before we knew, like this was early, early, the

0:07:51 Lydia: Yeah oh okay I see yeah it also like there's even food but But, you know, we didn't talk about it exactly. But Arlo's worst allergy is sunflower. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is at daycare.

0:08:43 Thomas: First daycare and I'll that never forget the pictures of his face, like it's just like he grew tennis balls on his face.

0:08:43 Lydia: His Mm-hmm. And And I know what I know, in hindsight, that was an EpiPen moment. And I didn't. And, yeah. Honestly, And daycare probably should have helped initiate that, too, because this was pretty new. He hindsight, I, you if you ever have doubt. Right. And didn't. And thankfully, he's OK. You Know, it's hard not to beat yourself up about that after the fact.

0:08:49 Thomas: Oh really?

0:09:11 Thomas: There's things that are hard mentally, we don't have to go into it too much, but I think for me one of the biggest things that that like it, I can't describe it, but it's this feeling of like, in that moment, they were trying to accommodate him. Not, And it's not anybody's fault. I'm not mad at anybody, but you know, it was just like, I don't know. But it's like this feeling of like oh, we're trying to accommodate your kid. So what we accidentally did or what the world did, again, I'm not It's not their fault, but like just thinking from Arlo's perspective, what it happened is Arlo can't eat certain things. So in order to try to make that better, you were accidentally fed the worst poison for your body that you have, like have these numbers of like how metachlorians are in your fucking blood for the given thing, and Arlo for sunflower is just off the chart, like it is just, it is one of those where the graph is like, yeah, just infinite, just don't even, you can't do that yeah.

0:09:23 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:09:56 Lydia: Don't even bother. Yeah yeah.

0:09:58 Thomas: And that hurts a lot, just that feeling that that happened, like in the world there are certain things where you're like, "Oh, we have to live with that forever." You, you mentioned EpiPens. At least those are, you know, free. I think there's free EpiPens in every building in the country, easy to get, and they're everywhere. They basically are handed out doctor's at offices and supermarkets because it's a thing that like a child may die, and it's, it's a simple, easy to make medicine that save the life of any kid at any moment. It's good that we have those on every street corner and like you can get them for free from the government. If that's my understanding of it anyway, is that is that how it is?

0:10:03 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no. There are a certain number of Epipens that are available in schools if the school requests them that are free. I think it's like four per school or it was several years ago anyway. Anyway. EpiPens went through a huge price gouging scandal. Started out around like $94 and it was a pair of EpiBens that you would get as a prescription. Then it skyrocketed over the course of eight or nine years to $600. They grew really, really fast. And it probably, you could have been felt even worse for certain people depending on what their insurance plan was with the deductible. But the some things about them, they last about a year before they expire. When you fill your prescription, it doesn't necessarily mean you're getting it on day one. Pharmacy might have had it for a period of time.

0:11:20 Lydia: So you might have to fill an Epi Pen prescription multiple times over the course of a year. If you have more than one kid with food allergies, you have to get it. You're also supposed to have a a pair of EpiPens in any place that your child spends a significant amount of time. For us, that would be a pair at home, a pair at daycare, probably pear at my parents' house when they're spending time with the grandparents, potentially in other places too. And when you think about then the cost times, you know, however many places you need to put that, really astronomical for a lot of of families very quickly. California, Kaiser was actually splitting the EpiPens. They're supposed to come in a pack of two because the first one might fail or

0:11:08 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, right. Yeah, but Oh,

0:12:00 Lydia: You might have a biphasic reaction. Yeah, they started splitting it because EpiBens, there was a shortage. They had an issue with the manufacturing of it where it wasn't deploying correctly. So they ended up having to do a lot of like fixes in the plants to that. And as a result, there there was a huge shortage EpiPens. Kaiser's solution to that was, we issue you one at a time for every time that you come up. And for a while, they were charging for the first pen and then the second pen. And then they got in big trouble for that. And they're like, all right, we are still rationing, but we're only going to charge you for the second pen when you fill the prescription. This was even like with doctors calling the pharmacy pharmacy and trying to advocate for their patients. Pharmacy wouldn't do it. So thankfully, we're out of the shortage. Every EpiPen prescription I filled the last like two years maybe has been the pair. But for a while, yeah, it was just the single EpiCen that they would be issuing.

0:12:02 Thomas: Wow.

0:12:51 Thomas: Has the cost gone down? I again, we're speaking from a lucky position that we had good health insurance. And so this wasn't nothing for us. Like Like, you said, I mean, there's a shortage, there was stuff to consider, but

0:12:54 Lydia: Right. The cost went down when Mylan at the time, Myelin Pharmaceuticals to decided create a generic version of their own drug and they cut the price in half. So instead of $600, it was like $325. Have been some calls to cap the epinephrine costs for patients like insulin. Insulin. That is something that there's a lawsuit, I guess, coming out right now about that saying that it, is you seizing property without paying for it from the company and saying that's a violation of the Fifth Amendment or something. I don't know. Didn't get too deep into that because it's like very, very early with that lawsuit. But they they are fighting back. They are not interested in having the prices capped for their drugs in to provide life -saving medication for children and of course, as well.

0:13:09 Thomas: That's nice.

0:13:47 Thomas: But the free market will take care of it. Because after our kid dies, then we'll be like, I'm I'm changing pharmacies that makes EpiPens. Wait, no, I can't do that. That doesn't fucking make any sense.

0:13:54 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. And for a long time, EpiPen in particular had a huge market share. It was, 90 you percent, upwards of 90 percent for a Long, Long Time. Come down a little bit. I the last number I saw was probably like 80%. So it's still EpiPen's

0:14:10 Thomas: Oh, is Epi Pen a brand name? I didn't even know that. Oh. Gotcha.

0:14:12 Lydia: The brand name. Yeah. Yeah, under Mylan. During that same time when they were increasing the cost of Epipen, the CEO for Mylan, their compensation package went from two and a half million. This is total. So not just salary. Right. It's stocks and everything else. Not But it went from two and a half million in her compensation package to 19 million. She is the daughter of Joe Manchin, by the way.

0:14:15 Thomas: Mm -hmm. My fucking God. Wait.

0:14:36 Lydia: Her name is Heather Bresch. Yeah, so Congress was really pissed when they found out about that. Thankfully, they um, got mad, um, they did not believe anything she was saying when she spoke, um, to them. I do have the video if you want to hear that. The

0:14:38 Thomas: Wow.

0:14:51 Thomas: This is the I'm hearing from 2016, September 21st, 2016. So before we knew how much worse everything was going to get.

0:15:00 Clip: Is considerable concern and skepticism about the pricing of EpiPens, and I think many people incorrectly assume that we make $600 off of each pen. It's simply not true. After subtracting Epi -Pen related costs, our profit is $100 or approximately $50 per pen. I wish we had better anticipated the magnitude and acceleration of the rising financial issues for a growing minority of patients who may have ended up paying the full wholesale acquisition cost or more. If you listen to your testimony, you'd never know what the uproar is about. You understand the nature of the uproot? I do, sir, and I truly believe it's a, it's like the story got ahead of the facts. Do you think you were charging too much at $600? That we believe it was a fair price, and we've just now lowered that price by half. Why'd you lower it by half if you thought it was

0:15:16 Thomas: Oh, well, I'm on her side now.

0:15:19 Lydia: Yeah.

0:15:49 Thomas: Yeah,

0:15:49 Clip: Fair? If you thought it was far, leave it where it's at. You're doing everyone a favor by charging three times what you acquired the drug for. It's a generic. You trying to make us feel good about that. I just don't. And I'm not buying your argument.

0:15:49 Thomas: That's what I was going.

0:15:59 Thomas: Yeah.

0:15:59 Clip: It was not your intention, but I think it might have helped Congress get around an issue by showing the blatant disregard you have and disrespect you have I mean I feel like there's no answers, ma'am, and I think it's in fairness to us, you knew what this hearing was about, you KNEW what our concerns were, and, I just, I mean, I'm asking you questions that, uh, you're the CEO. Yes sir. But I would think you would know. You have 94% of the market share. Correct. Yeah. I'd call that a stranglehold, I'd called that a lot of control, you don't want to call it control, don't.

Because you have such a stranglehold on the market, you can do what you want, and you have. So we have had many competitors in and out of this marketplace. In fact, that just underscores the complexity. Your competitors don't even equal 6% of the market in this brush. I mean, that doesn't even pass the giggle test, what you're asserting. You virtually have a monopoly, and your competitors don't even equal the market. You've used it to your advantage, but unfortunately, it's at the expense of people who need it.

0:16:10 Thomas: Wow. This is Joe Manchin's daughter.

0:16:12 Lydia: Yeah.

0:17:08 Thomas: This person is basically fucking Martin Shkreli, but doesn't get the same attention. Mansion, why is this any fucking different? Yeah.

0:17:13 Lydia: Yeah. I know, pretty remarkable. I- I was like, really proud of that congressional committee, um, just really speaking on behalf. Yeah, yeah.

0:17:22 Thomas: Imagine how shitty that person has to be for people, for this is the house, but like, they know this is Joe Mansion's daughter, to be like, "I'm sorry this is so shitty, we can't, there's no, we're not gonna baby you on this one, like, this is awful." I love the, like, "Oh, we only make, you McLaughlin, music place, we only make $50 to $100." Well, wasn't the price $75 before it was $75 for a very long time and that seemed to be okay. And now you're like, you don't understand. We only make $100 of profit on it now. Would I feel like that's not enough? Profit is more than it used to cost in its entirety. I

0:17:31 Lydia: Yeah. Arms of angel. Yeah. Also the And language that she used to after subtracting the cost of EpiPen. So does

0:18:11 Thomas: Was like, what?

0:18:11 Lydia: That include salary? Like what all do you get to include in that? Yeah.

0:18:13 Thomas: I know. Epi related costs. Yeah. I love that one. That's fantastic.

0:18:17 Lydia: Yeah. Recently there was actually an that's been tested and was brought to the FDA. That's a non -injectable alternative for epinephrine, kind of first of its kind, it would be a nasal spray. And it's called Nephi. Signs pointed to it being approved. Is from ARS Pharmaceuticals. They were expecting approval until they received their denial letter on September 19th. On May 11th, if you back up, there was a -member committee that heard the findings of ARS Pharmaceuticals and NEFI as a product. And they approved it. They voted to approve it 16 to 6 for adults, 16 yes, 6 no, and 17 yes, 5 no for children. Is through the FDA. So that was May 11th.

And since then, the FDA had been working with ARS Pharmaceutical to kind of hammer out the specific information, things like what's the package going What are the labeling requirements that they want to see on the package? Very like fine details of next steps. And then on June 12th, a called Viatris, which is the parent company of EpiPen, they have acquired Mylan. Mylan no longer exists as its like separate entity. They merged. Parent company of EpiPen submitted a citizen petition to the FDA, 28 pages, asking that they delay approval until more testing is done. And one of the things that they asked for, from what I can gather, is something that was done, but they're asking for it to be done again. And that's how well does this product do if the individual has a runny nose? Well, of course, they're going to test that if it's a nasal spray.

0:19:00 Thomas: Okay. Yeah, yeah, what

0:19:57 Lydia: That's something I mean, these are not dumb people. Um, was June 12th. And then a couple months later, the FDA said, never mind to Neffy, um, the product. And it is, they're trying to appeal the decision. Um, but who knows? And it delays a non -injectable form of life for months, years, who knows.

0:20:19 Thomas: I don't. Yeah Obviously, we'll do anything to save our kid, and we have, but it would be nice if you could do something that's not jabbing your kid in a crisis time.

0:20:24 Lydia: Yeah, it was traumatic. Yeah. When Arlo had to have that done, the EpiPen, it was, watched you it. Of course, I was there with the doctor and everything. And it was not good.

0:20:30 Thomas: Yeah. So this was last year. The worst reaction Arlo's ever had, it was last year. I was at QED, and this was like, if anybody saw me at QLED last year, it was probably really fucking weird because I was like just hysterical and crying when this happened. Happened, and then I was like, I couldn't decide if I wanted to go be my by, but I felt like almost like too anxious and that I would rather be around, you know, Eli and Anna and other people. So I didn't know what, I was kind of going back and forth and not to like, Obviously, Just from my point of view, from Lydia's point of vue, I'm gone, and you, daycare, the new daycare that we signed him up with at that time, they were great in many ways, but they gave him sun butter. I don't even, I don' t even remember why.

0:20:40 Lydia: Yeah, yeah.

0:21:07 Lydia: No, it's OK.

0:21:21 Lydia: Some miscommunication. Yeah?

0:21:23 Thomas: Yeah. What was it?

0:21:23 Lydia: I think they relied on these allergy cards that they make to kind of like flag it.

0:21:24 Thomas: Oh Oh God. Yeah, for the stupidest reasons.

0:21:30 Lydia: Yeah and his His wasn't done yet. They

0:21:30 Thomas: I mean, it's, I wasn't like, oh, we don't have his picture yet. So we're not, we don't have this picture to put on the card. It was like, all right. I mean, I again, I'm not like mad at anybody. It's just the kind of, I, you know, it just goes to show like how easily when you have a kid who has this problem or if it's you even how easily and stupidly things can go from nothing to emergency where it's like, oh, we want, you know, we'd want to put his picture on this thing, which is yeah, that's great. They have a system for for where they put his picture and they put what he's allergic to but since he just started the the daycare, whatever, they hadn't done that. So some people at a daycare who make no money because we've decided that somehow daycare costs us almost all of our salary. And yet the who work there make no money.

0:21:35 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah

0:22:17 Thomas: It's still unclear to me how that works. I'll never understand it. Just a lot of requirements and rents. And I don't know. I don'T know what it is. But so like, it's hard to be mad. They don't make any money. And that of stupid thing just goes to show like how hard this can be for the people who are bearing the burden because like some stupid thing can happen and then your kid is in the hospital and that's just an example of like I can't believe there are so many people online who are mad at us for having this horrible thing that's like the hardest thing we deal with that we obviously never would have chosen to have. So and so I'm gone and you're managing that.

0:22:23 Lydia: Insurance. Yeah yeah, super pregnant. Yeah. It was really hard. I there and he to be kind of okay. So we tried Benadryl, and then he promptly threw up, and then I asked them to call 9-1-1. And the ambulance came. Vitals all looked good when we got picked up. And then over the course of the ride to the hospital, things changed. And I could tell because the paramedic, like, or talking to me at a certain point.

0:22:54 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wow.

0:23:18 Lydia: And was just focused on Arlo, which I appreciated. But that was very scary in moment. And we rushed in. Was three at the time and got the EpiPen and steroids and didn't totally work. They had to keep giving him more medicine. We ended up doing an IV when they moved us to observation. And we were there for, I want to say like five hours, maybe a little bit longer. Over the course of that time, my phone died because I never had to look at my phone. My parents, thankfully, were close by. And so I was able to get in touch with them before my phone died. And my dad just they picked up Phoebe. They picked up the dog.

0:24:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:24:00 Lydia: My dad picked up the car that I had left at daycare when I jumped in the ambulance with Arlo, then he just drove to the hospital and he waited in the parking lot for hours until I walked out, no idea when I would be discharged, you know, with with Arla and everything. So, yeah, it was horrible. I know you felt horrible. You you were asking me if you should get a plane ticket and and come home like right away, um, it was bad. It was yeah.

0:24:24 Thomas: It's the kind of thing where you figure like, well, he's at a good hospital. And I don't feel like this is like the most deadly thing there. Just over there with no information doing every possible calculation in my head of like this. This has to be OK. Right. Like, you But other really hard thing when you have kids is like they're they're not aware of what's going on. Think it's going to be hard for people to listen to if we're just crying the whole time.

0:24:50 Thomas: So we're doing our best, everybody. Well, there's going to be a lot of editing, hopefully make this a little easier to listen to, but um, yeah, the hardest thing is that your kid never knows what's going on, so they're just this little, you, little goofball, and you see them continuing to try to be a kid.

0:24:50 Lydia: We're gonna pull it together. We're Yeah.

0:25:08 Thomas: Not like they're an adult where they're like, oh, shoot, what's happening me, oh, okay, let's figure, you're this, you know, it's like, they're just, still just trying to be that amazing kid that they are. And then you see their, their body, not letting them, or them being tired, or them. Being with an IV and just being out of it. And it's, it'S definitely not a choice we would make.

0:25:22 Lydia: Yeah. I.

0:25:28 Thomas: It's definitely not something we're just doing just, treat allergies is this like we're trying to ruin everybody else's day or something or like.

0:25:35 Lydia: Know.

0:25:36 Thomas: It's. Nothing, it's first of all, it's, it's sunflower, like how, how big a part of your life is that, is that a huge deal. And again, this is not directed at the daycare, this is directed at people who have this attitude that this, that this is something we're doing to them, you, thing like awful. I wouldn't. Wish it on anyone to have their kid be in the hospital and have that scary time. I would not wish that on anyone. And I don't know how much of that was able to be heard. Because aware of how uncomfortable it is to listen to this for extended periods of time. I'm really doing my best. But it's that it's like, that hard to talk about at all without crying. Like I can't even. But my doing best. Say I mean, turning to the positive, at least we live in the time we live in. That's not that positive. At least.

0:25:36 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:26:22 Thomas: We live in modern Times. And yeah, and there are things that like it's it is actually amazing how much people do to help us, you know, and looking at it a different way. It is nice. Like there are there are laws. There are, you, there's things people do to try to make this not happen. And so you're going to talk a little bit about the history of that just.

0:26:23 Lydia: It's better.

0:26:42 Lydia: Prior to 2004, it was kind of wild, wild west when it came to nutrition labeling as it relates to allergens. And much.

0:26:53 Thomas: Picturing the wild wild west. There's so much sun butter. There's like draw this. Is like pulled out of sun butter thing. Ah, yeah.

0:27:00 Lydia: But back in 1998, the FDA decided to work with the Department of Agriculture in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and they wanted to look at – there had been a lot of allergen -related recalls lately, and so they partnered with them to do an inspection of a variety of food manufacturing establishments. Between the two states, they looked at 80 different establishments, and then they released a report in 2001 that really kind of shocked a lot of people. In products that were labeled as not containing peanuts, peanuts were not listed anywhere on the ingredients, 25 % of the final food product samples tested positive for peanut protein. They also looked at egg protein and 10 % of final food products that were not meant to include egg included egg. And this was, like I said, really shocking to a lot of people, and they were not okay with that. So they decided to write the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act, which was eventually passed in 2004, becoming effective in 2006. So prior to that, I can't even imagine what life would have looked like without appropriate labels.

0:28:14 Thomas: And Interesting because there is a lot, even us knowing all of Arlo's allergies, and you know, mainly Lydia, I have to credit you, obviously you do the majority of the shopping and and all that, so you keep a good track of it and pay, pay attention. There's, you, several times of what a week may, you know, maybe I'm exaggerating, but very frequently he just has a reaction. We have no. Fucking idea why, like it could be trace amounts. He could, it could be another kid. It could be, you literally anything. And that's, You we have to deal with. You you an idea, like These trace amounts make things hard, you know, like they make things difficult. We

0:28:38 Lydia: We don't know. Yeah.

0:28:53 Lydia: Crosses over into things that aren't food either. Either. So do pretty young, he started getting a reaction that we could not figure out. And eventually, we were able to identify, oh, he was messing with the cat food. And the cat food included egg, or the cats, but the cat Food in particular included egg.

0:29:07 Thomas: Oh yeah. Or, or messing with the cats. Yeah. Yeah,

0:29:13 Lydia: So then we had to switch the cats to a completely different food that would be free of his allergens. The dog, I don't buy her anything that's peanut butter. She's missing out on a whole wonderful world for dogs.

0:29:13 Thomas: Yeah.

0:29:24 Thomas: She'S fine.

0:29:25 Lydia: Yeah, she's fine. She has almond butter, which is very like bougie.

0:29:27 Thomas: Here's the good thing about dogs is dogs have, uh, every positive experience is an 11 out of 10, so it's fine. Dogs

0:29:35 Lydia: There was like an eczema body wash I was using for him when he was really young and eczéma, it wasn't getting better. It was getting worse and worse. And I couldn't understand why. And then I looked at the label on the back and it included sunflower. And couldn't use that. So then it was evaluating shampoos, conditioners, body washes, soaps, sunscreen, lip glosses that I would use if I wanted to kiss my kid. I have to keep an eye out on his allergens for what's in the makeup that I'm using. Yeah,

0:29:38 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And It's not as easy as you might think it is. It's, it's tricky.

0:30:05 Lydia: Yeah. Especially when you're dealing with multiple allergies, it's really hard. The Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act, sort of that first step towards protecting people with food allergies by way of labeling appropriately, was focused on the top eight allergens, milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy and wheat. Was largely due to the efforts of what's now the Food Allergy Research and Education Organization. It was two initiatives at the time, but they later merged in 2012. this act did not address the issue of potential cross -contact.

0:30:09 Thomas: Yeah. Hmm.

0:30:41 Lydia: And so for a long time, the "may contain" label was completely voluntary. Voluntary, there, no, like, requirements surrounding expectations on cleaning lines in between those things, so it was, it was, weren't super, weren't stringent anyway. So they tried to address that in 2016 with the Food Safety Modernization Act to address that allergen cross -contact offer requirements that were more particular, more specific. And And then that was sort of the last thing that we saw until the FASTER Act in April 2021, which was the Food Allergy Safety Treatment Education and Research Act. And that was to bring sesame on to the top eight to make it a top nine. And it would now be a mandatory allergen required for labeling food.

0:31:27 Thomas: Like, a lot of people really wanted this to happen. Um, know they have allergies to sesame and it's like getting that added to that list. And I, I can play a few clips here to give you an idea, this is largely looked at as like, this is going to be great. I

0:31:39 Clip: Daughter Vivian was diagnosed with anaphylactic food allergies when she was six months old. I never chose to be impacted by food allergies, but they impacted me. Having one of the 32 million Americans living with food allergies. I really rely on these labeling laws to tell me what I can and can't eat. The FASTER Act is so important. There are people allergic to things that are so often hidden in foods that you would never think to label. The biggest thing that the FASTER Act would improve for me would be all the research that it would do. If there was more awareness, if there was more research, there would just be a huge sigh of relief, just because it's so scary all the time. Research, there are different treatments available, I can't even imagine what my life would be like. I think the impact on the mental health and the well-being of families that live with food allergies would be enormous. We would have thousands and thousands and thousands of people not living with those fears all the time. We

0:32:44 Thomas: Heard the inspiring music. That's, P a lot of people were working to make this happen, and, and great, um, past it's, I can actually read you the entirety of the act because it's pretty short, um, act to improve the health and safety of Americans living with food allergies and related disorders, including potentially life threatening anaphylaxis, food protein induced enterocolitis syndrome, and Easy, I don't know. No, I mean, sorry. But any of those things being In general, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act is amended by striking and soybeans and inserting and sesame. Sesame.

0:32:45 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:33:19 Thomas: It is really just weird that like a lot of all of this advocacy and all this like heartbreak and money and whatever is like, can you change "and soybeans" to "soybeans and sesame"? But I, yeah, it's fucking, I guess that's how the world works. And there's some other stuff too about You heard that maybe mentioned in the kind there. So So there's this like reporting side to it. Maybe with a mind to help, find you a cure for some of this stuff, which would be really amazing.

0:33:32 Lydia: The And Yeah.

0:33:50 Thomas: You know, that's the best of intentions. That's what was passed. Let's skip to the part where we take all those best intentions and then capitalism says, oh, well, here's what we're going to do. That might cost us a nickel. So we're gonna kill your child instead. And that I'm not I wish I wish I wish I were fucking exaggerating, but I'm not like, I can't even, the first time Lydia told me this, I have a problem, which is largely where if I hear something that makes no fucking sense, I, I have a hard time accepting that it's real. Like, I'm just like, oh, there's nothing, it's nothing against you or anybody who tells me something. I hear something that's like, well, that's fucking stupid. That can't be real. Then my brain is like, just, there is no, there must be a misunderstanding somewhere. There must be some. Even though I know that you have put the time into looking into this, the first time you mentioned this to me, my was just like, no, there's no way. There's no

0:34:05 Lydia: And Mm. -hmm, yeah. Yeah.

0:34:43 Thomas: Wait. What has happened is as a result of what I just read you, as a results of the FASTA Act that going into effect in January 1st, 2023, companies are now putting sesame into foods. I can't even, I just, like, that's the long and short of it. We're going to explain it. But like, that's what's happening. So the reaction that you might've seen, I shared about on Facebook that Arlo just had, is because of that, they are put it because of what has happened. They said, okay, I got an idea, let's put the poison that poisons your kid into foods. It is mind blowing. It's makes it's me so angry, and I couldn't even accept it at first.

It's this weird, like, perverse incentive thing that happened as a result of the act. So what has happened is, because sesame was added to the list, so now it's instead of eight, it's nine, that added requirements for if your thing is going to not have sesame. And this was largely already in that old bill. As you heard, the new bill didn't really change that much. It just added sesame. But because that's now an allergen officially or whatever the hell, now if your, your product, if your food product is gonna not have sesame, it has to like really not have, says, like, it has to be, there's requirements about how clean everything is, cross-contamination.

0:34:54 Lydia: Like Yep. Right. Yeah.

0:36:01 Thomas: All that stuff, and manufacturers that made foods that didn't have sesame in them and were fine for Arlo to eat, now, instead of going to the trouble of making sure it doesn't have sesame in it, there's this weird fucking perverse incentive where they are putting sesame in and just calling it one of the ingredients, because that sidesteps the rule, because obviously no law is saying no one can make something with sesame in it, that's not what the law is. So now they are taking all these products and they're saying, well, fine, fuck it, fuck Arlo in particular, we're just going to have sesame be an ingredient, and the packaging is not changing. What happened is on Saturday night, the made hot dogs for the kids.

0:36:22 Lydia: Trace.

0:36:44 Lydia: Yep.

0:36:44 Thomas: You used the hot dog buns you always use for the kids because you, once again, because you're amazing, have gone through all of this crap a million times and found the things that Arlo both likes and can eat, which is a long process. It's a tough one. And so you give him the hot dog buns that he's always eaten. And then I that he he wasn't looking good in the, like in the evening and It was one of those things where, cause since I wasn't involved in the thing, I was like, yeah, he's having an allergic reaction.

0:36:48 Lydia: Yep, yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah.

0:37:18 Thomas: But since you were, are always aware of this, you're like, no, he can't be. Cause I've done, I've been, I'm like, I don't know. I've, I, I I've I've never done all this. And like, you know, you're a hundred percent right in your mind. You've done all the due diligence that you always do. Cause you're amazing. Amazing, and I don't know the details, I was just thinking he must have gotten into something, or maybe some weird, you know, it was a Saturday, so it was like, well, it wasn't from school, you know?

So, but I was, I don'T know, I just could tell, I WAS like, he'S having a reaction, like, I can kind of tell his back was all scaly, you KNOW, like, HE'S starting to get bumps, it was more than, it WAS also more than just one of the really easy ones, you Know, one of the ones that'S just a few hives, it Was feeling a little worse than that, like HE seemed a little little out of it. Um, and his back was, was getting scaly and all that. And I was just saying like, he's he, having reaction. And so that's when, you know, I think you started just double checking everything, right?

0:37:21 Lydia: There's no way. Yeah, mm hmm.

0:37:47 Lydia: Yeah yeah yeah I went over to the to the fridge and pulled out everything and and looked at it, and lo and behold, hot dog bun, literally the last ingredient, says sesame flour.

0:38:17 Thomas: The hot dog buns that you've always bought that have the exact same looking packaging, nothing's fucking changed now have added sesame because of this fucking thing. And I shouldn't say it's because of this thing. It's because something like this is passed to try to help people like Arlo and us, capitalism is like, but that'll probably cost us like four cents.

0:38:23 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:38:40 Thomas: So let's just ruin your fucking life instead. Like, let's literally take everything you knew about what was safe for your kid and it's out the window now. It's now gone. So frustrating. And what's particularly infuriating about it is, this guy, who's the commissioner, the commissioner, The commissioner of FDA, he has a response to this, which is like, uh oh yeah, no, there are definitely companies that are doing the right thing. And then he's like, "At the same time we become aware of a practice with an outcome we do not support. Some manufacturers are intentionally adding sesame to products that previously did not contain sesame and are labeling the products to indicate its presence. Presence. This keeps manufacturers in compliance with our law for disclosing the presence of major food allergen, but limits options for consumers who are allergic to sesame." Me, and so recognizing the problem, but it's like, I, I would love somebody to have a fucking plan. Or something. So.

0:39:26 Lydia: Yeah, so what are we going to do about it? Yeah.

0:39:28 Thomas: Then that, under the heading of finding solutions to this, essentially, thing, let, like, fucking, it just says, "The agency is interested in finding solutions within our authorities that meet the needs of consumers with food allergies, while also taking into account the practical limitations industry may be facing in implementing effective cross-contact controls and allergen labeling. Ultimately, we are looking for opportunities that could help consumers who are allergic to sesame find foods that are safe for them to consume.

Consumers should know that a food product's ingredients can be changed at any time, so it's a good practice to check the label every time you buy a food project, even if you have eaten it before and didn't have an allergic reaction. We have made additional information, information available to consumers about sesame as an allergen through our consumer update." Catch up with you next time. And like, I mean, I get, I- don't blame this guy. Like he probably is fucking powerless to do anything about this because our government is stupid. And like the bill is the bill and he has the authority. He has the FDA has the authority it has, but I, there's something just particularly frustrating about being told, well, you know, just check the label.

0:40:14 Lydia: Yeah. Every time.

0:40:30 Thomas: It's like, yeah. So we have to check the label every things we already knew, thought were safe or not safe, we have to check the fucking, and they could change at any time. It's not like, oh, we'll check it now and then that'll be good for it's like every. Get that it's probably easy for people aren't affected to be like, well, just read every single label for every single thing you ever consume or use, as you said, a lip balm, a fucking shampoo, a medicine, or whatever.

0:40:40 Lydia: Yeah Yeah.

0:40:55 Thomas: Oh, just read the label every single day you ever buy a new thing ever in your life for the rest of your life, that's easy, just do that. And by the way, if you mess up once your kid could be in the hospital.

0:40:55 Lydia: It's exhausting.

0:41:07 Thomas: But that's fine, just do, just do forever for the life, yeah.

0:41:07 Lydia: Yeah Personal responsibility, right?

0:41:13 Thomas: This, so it's infuriating, like, yeah, we know we should be reading the fucking label of every single fucking thing every day, all the time, forever. It's, it's hard, it's hard to do that with perfect accuracy all the time forever. It was really nice to be able to have certain foods that you're like, this one's Arlo safe, we tested it, it's Arlo's safe, now he can rely on that, especially again for a kid who, kids are hard to get stuff they like sometimes, and so to be able to find that it is just this, it is, it is, I can't believe this is real. I'm so sorry, hon, that when you first told me about, you warn me about this, like, months ago, and I, and my brain was just like, I don't remember what I said, but I think I was just confused. But my brain was like, that can't be right. There's no way this can't.

0:41:21 Lydia: Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why would they do that? Yeah,

0:41:56 Thomas: We live in a society like you can't, can't, a bill that says, "Hey, let's try to help kids that might be killed", or anybody, by the way, adults too, but for us, obviously, it's our kid. And it's particularly hard with kids because they don't have the ability to do this for themselves. Arlo can't do this. He can't read. He has no idea. He goes to a friend's house, he has no fucking idea, you know, like, that's another fear we always have, is he going to go to someone's house, we've communicated with him, we do communicate, but like, again, are not 100 batting average on being perfectly competent at everything at every moment, every time, all the time, so all it takes is, oh, we forgot to mention one of his many allergies, and he got into something, or they offered him something, or they, they, or we did mention it, they forgot, because it's not their, their life, you know, like, there's so many challenges already.

0:42:32 Lydia: It's hard.

0:42:45 Lydia: Or before the FASTER Act, you know, things with tahini, a lot of people don't know that that's sesame seed paste. So that was something I had to be really particular about for a long time before it started being labeled with the parenthetical "sesame" after it, you know? Was like, don't give him hummus. You can make homemade hummus, But yeah, but you cannot give him hummus because tahini is Sesame. Yep, yep.

0:43:03 Thomas: Oh, that was another big one. Yeah. Hummus was a big daycare meal. Yeah. Passed this law. We passed this bill to maybe make Arlo's life and our lives a little easier. And capitalism was like, oh, of that, let's literally make your entire life fucking hell. And any possible product at any time could now badly... For Arlo, fortunately, sesame is not his worst allergy. It's not good, but it's not his worse. If it was sunflower, I mean, that would truly... I don't know what we would be doing right now. Like that would be... Imagine the fucking... And you know there's these parents out there. You know their parents. They're people who have the sesame allergy to the degree that Arlo has the sunflower allergy.

Or Maybe worse. Worse. Imagine how tense our lives would be right now. They already are because this sucks, but like, imagine if it was sunflower. Hun, if at any moment any product that we were previously consumed and was fine, and and not just us, the schools, all that could have sunflower and he goes to the hospital or or he worse, you know, like at any time I- -is not an acceptable state of the fucking universe. I, I don't, I can't handle this. It's so, it's so sad and frustrating, and the amount of that I have about this, is it's very hard to deal with. Like, researching this has been hard to even know what to say and how to, how

0:43:09 Lydia: Mm. -Hmm. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah.

0:44:29 Thomas: To even contain how frustrating this is. And I know to most people in the country, this isn't something they have to worry about that, I get that. And if that's something you don't care about, that's fine, I get there, there are a lot of things to care about in the world, there are a whole lot of really difficult things, there are, there's a fucking genocide happening right now and I get it, um, it's hard, you know, but like, this is just one of the many reasons we need a functioning government. And there's precisely one political party that is at all interested in a functioning government, the other is interested in you, EpiPen company making, you know, $200 a profit instead of a hundred. Like, it's so fucking obvious which side is even remotely close to having a functioning government and which is actively dismantling things that are very life and death for a lot of people.

Not just this. There's a lot, if this is, there's a lot of issues just like this every day that affect people that you need a functioning government for. And I just, you else, even if this isn't directly relevant to you, please consider how many things there are like this, that the best solution, and sometimes and often only solution, is a functioning federal government, or how much that always matters, just does.

Let that be just one more motivation to never miss a vote and to do everything you can to get your friends and family and people you know to vote for the people who don't want to ruin the entire government, for the people who maybe are going to make the government better. Because, you know why? We don't have a better fucking option. Can sit around all day and dream about how there's probably some better option, but we don't have it. So let's just do nothing. That does nothing. Does absolutely fucking nothing.

0:44:46 Lydia: Yeah. I'm Just want to say, you know, even if folks don't have someone in their life with a food allergy, um, they have kids, their kids probably know somebody with a food allergy, they might be friends with somebody with the food allergy. There have been cases of kids as they grow up and kissing their partner and their partner ingested their allergy and now they're having a reaction. Are all things. It's education, right? It's understanding, especially with kids, bullying for food allergies is pretty bad.

At, you know, a few years ago it was. Some was a study back in 2013 that found about one in three children are bullied because of their food allergy. That included throwing food at them intentionally. Yeah. Food at them, intentionally contaminating their safe food, touching them with it. In that study, it was reported that only 52 percent of the parents knew that this was happening to their kids.

So, from me, the parent of a child with food allergies, just were really, really hard statistics for me to read. And are very serious consequences for the children who that behavior, because food allergies are often mocked, minimized, joked about, scoffed at. There have been criminal charges against young kids for doing this to other kids. And, you know, if you're a parent of that kid, you don't want that, certainly.

Was a case in 2018 where a 14-year-old girl was charged with felony aggravated assault for rubbing pineapple on her hand and high-fiving someone she knew to have a pineapple allergy. And two other teens that kind of egged her on were charged with conspiracy. A university, a student pled guilty to assault and battery because during a hazing incident, there was a student that was allergic to peanut butter and they were unconscious and they smeared peanut butter on his face.

Um, these are, there are consequences, of course, for the kids with food allergies, like life and death. But there's also significant consequences for the people who are doing behavior on the other side if they're engaging in bullying. So, I guess this is my, my plea for education and kind of reducing that stigma for food allergy and maybe to stop joking about it. Media, stand-up comedians, it's not funny. Serious. It's

0:48:29 Thomas: That's, that's hard. So yeah, I also, in addition to like, maybe of the political angle on this I would also ask just please be a fucking human being, everybody. I know that's a lot of the last several, you know, the last decade of our situation, but like you should care about other people and you should try to raise your kids to care about other people if you can, if it's not too much trouble, that would be really good.

0:48:40 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Do have something positive I can pivot to. Spooky season. So if you aren't already participating in this, it's called the Teal Pumpkin Project through FAIR, Food Allergy Research and Education. And what it's intended to do is to provide allergy friendly, you know, safe treats for kids as they're trick-or-treating through the neighborhood. You can put up a sign, you know, a teal pumpkin, there's teal pump and buckets, you can add your address to a map that FAIR has on their website to kind of help parents figure out where their kids can safely go trick-or-treating. In years past I've, I've done bubbles, I've done stickers, stamps, glow in the dark skeletons. This year I got trading packs of Pokemon cards from, I'll be putting out, so that way kids That

0:49:47 Thomas: I'm allergic to Pokemon. Great. Fucking great.

0:49:49 Lydia: Yeah, so that kids who have allergies don't have to even that chance of putting their hand in a bowl of chocolate and something that they know is going to be safe and, and um, okay for them. Yeah.

0:50:03 Thomas: That's, emphasize enough how much I don't really need, want this to be a burden on anyone else, um, know, it's something, it's nice if you could, if you Think of it and could do it, it's nice, but I'm not mad at you for not doing that, um, know. This is something that Arlo, we have dealt with for his whole life, and we have to do things like bring separate, you, cupcakes to every single birthday party just in case. Cause how shitty is it for the birthday cake to come out and your kid to not be able to get it.

0:50:11 Lydia: Yep. The

0:50:30 Thomas: And if there's one thing that's a little bit that makes life easier for us, Arlo is the best fucking kid of all time. And he almost never has a problem with it and he understands it and she gets excited about his cupcakes. We are so lucky to have Arlo. I mean, he is, he's just the best little guy and for Halloween I know, I think in the past you've either brought candy or you just know which candies are okay for but it's, a you kind of thing that if, you if, think of it and if you want to be considerate, it like is nice to, to participate in those kinds of things or just have the options. I mean, there's plenty of good candies that kids like anyway, that don't have particular allergens and it's not really, doesn't infringe on anyone else's ability to have fun, you

0:50:30 Lydia: Only One. Yeah. Yeah.

0:50:46 Lydia: Yeah.

0:51:12 Lydia: That's

0:51:13 Thomas: We just wanted to leave you with, we interviewed Arlo for, to get his perspective perspective on this. And we thought that would be fun. We'll, we'll throw it over to our correspondent in the field, Arlo Smith, who I know if you'll understand anything he tells you, but rest assured, it's all cute and very silly. Thanks for listening. And, you apologies that this was a really personal, emotional one for us, but it's just something that we just couldn't not talk about. It's so, it'S so frustrating. And it, about you a lot of the things we care about already, about public policy and government and science, you know, somewhat. And so we you mind indulging us on this particular episode. And thank you so much to everybody trying to do what you can to a more caring world, because that's literally the minute Phoebe was born, that is all I care about. All right, thanks so much for listening, and we'll throw it over to correspondent Arla Smith. Here you go.

0:52:08 Thomas: Right, buddy. Why don't you tell everyone your name? What's your name. Arlo. And how old are you? Four. Were wondering if you wanted to tell people about your allergies. Do you know what you're allergic to? Little bit. Okay. What can, can you. You. Eggs. Yeah. Eggs. I'm allergic to peanut butter. Yeah. Peanut butter. Sun butter. Yes, sunflower seeds. Sunflowers. Sunflowers. And, remember, I'm allergic to sunflower butter. Yeah, I remember. Sunflower, Sunflower butter. And what about, let's, Sesame. Yeah. And also those seeds on, on the hopper.

Yeah, those are sesame. Yeah. Those are sesame? Yeah, they're sesame seeds. Oh. So buddy, what happens when we go to, like, a birthday party? I can't eat the stuff that I'm allergic to there. What is something you're allergic to that's at birthday parties a lot? Yeah, the cake. So what do you do instead? I eat the cupcakes you made. You eat the cupcakes that I buy that are safe, right? Yes. Yeah. We bring them to every birthday party. Yes.

Yes, but all the birthday parties that are not mine, only those ones. Yeah, because other people don't have your allergies. When it's your birthday, usually dad makes you something, huh? Yes. That everybody can eat. And you need to make a chocolate tape for me. Yeah. Oh, that would be yummy. So, buddy, what happened the other day when you got an allergic reaction? Ate a hot dog and a hotdog bun and, um, in it. Yeah.

I ate one bagel that was safe for me and all the hours had sesame in it. And they didn't used to, huh? Yeah. Yeah, they used to be safe. Then they were really bad. And then they weren't really bad? What did you tell us about that? The bad guys? You're talking to the bad guy. Was telling Todd that stupid, stupid. Poo poo poo-boo buttsies. Oh, double poo poo. No, the first one's normal poo poo and the second one's just poo poo buttsies. Oh, I see. Gotcha.

Makes sense. And then, I hate you. Aww. And then I hate them. Them, yeah, I know what you mean, but remember mom, mom talked to you about hate being kind of a strong word, right? Yes. And you're the worst, you want to say you're the worst to them? No, that's fair. No, no, they're the worse. Yeah, we know, we know you're talking about the, the people put sesame in the stuff, huh?

Yes, they're put sesame and stuff that I used to eat and they have allergy in them. Yeah, and now there is. Hey, bud, do you remember, like, is it scary when you have an allergic reaction, or do you remember when you had to go to the hospital? I remember when I went to the hospital when I was at school. I, because ate that bread. It was the sun butter sandwich, right? Yes. What do you remember about that? Was it really scary, or was, was scary.

It was scary? Did, and I remember Dada was out of town, so it was really scary for Dada. Allergies? If you could ask the people who put the sesame seed in the hot dog buns, what would you ask them? Um, never do that ever again. Yeah, okay, thank you, buddy. Thanks for this interview, we love you so much. I never put sesame and stuff that I used to eat ever again. Okay, yeah, we'll try to get that message to him.

Thanks for joining us, love you, big boy. And then, I'll look at, or Legos. Do you want to go play Legos? Um, no. You want to look at Legos? Yeah, look at legos that we don't have. On more IP. Okay. Thanks buddy. I'm just looking at leghos today.