Skin Test Recall

Last December there was a recall on one brand of peanut skin tests because of increasing reports of allergic reactions following a negative result. Now the FDA is issuing a warning on all skin tests that anaphylaxis has occurred following negative skin tests and the negative diagnosis should be confirmed with an IgE blood test if the clinician feels necessary.

Earlier this year, I wrote about the impacts of false positives and false negatives on skin tests and the cost of false negatives is clear. If a patient believes they are not allergic to a certain food, they stop avoiding it, and are at risk for a serious allergic reaction including anaphylaxis. We know there’s a high rate of false positives, but in the past we’ve been able to really trust negative results because there is such a low rate of false negatives. So a negative skin test is very valuable. It means you can rule out that food allergy with good certainty!

Now that there’s been more reported false negatives, that throws into question how to interpret skin tests and really makes them a lot less helpful. We really need better screening tests for food allergies. Allergies are on the rise! Let’s find a better way to test for them!