Ep. 301: Safety in the Air - the State of Flying with Food Allergies

Taking to the skies with food allergies can bring some big questions: How do you stay safe onboard—and what happens if anaphylaxis occurs at 30,000 feet?

One critical concern is access to epinephrine onboard the aircraft and what that could mean during an in-flight emergency. Joining us is No Nut Traveler President and food allergy advocate, Lianne Mandelbaum, MS, to unpack this important issue, explain what travelers need to know, and share practical strategies for flying more safely with food allergies.

Resources to keep you in the know:

• No Nut Traveler
• No Nut Traveler Grassroots Army FAA Letter and information
• "Food Allergy Community Up In Arms Over Epinephrine on Planes" - Allergic Living (Lianne Mandelbaum)
• FAA Docket Open for Comments (until 10/05/2026)
• TSA CARES - Disabilities and Medical

You can find FAACT's Roundtable Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Spotify, Podbay, iHeart Radio, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Threads, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, and YouTube.

Sponsored by: ARS Pharma

Thanks for listening! FAACT invites you to discover more exciting food allergy resources at FoodAllergyAwareness.org!

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Caroline: Welcome to FAACT's Roundtable, a podcast dedicated to navigating life with food allergies across the lifespan. Presented in a welcoming format with interviews and open discussions,

each episode will explore a specific topic, leaving you with the facts to know or use.

Information presented via this podcast is educational and not intended to provide individual medical advice.

Please consult with your personal board certified allergist or healthcare providers for advice specific to your situation.

Caroline: Hi everyone, I'm Caroline Moassessi and I am your host for the FAACT Roundtable Podcast. I am a food allergy parent and advocate and the founder of the Grateful Foodie Blog.

And I am FAACT's Vice President of Community Relations.

Before we start today's podcast, I just want to pause for just a moment to say thank you to ARS Pharma for being a kind sponsor of FAACT's roundtable podcast.

And please note that today's guest was not sponsored or paid by ARS Pharma to participate in this specific podcast.

Taking to the skies with food allergies can bring some big questions, but how do you stay safe on board and what happens if anaphylaxis occurs at 30,000ft?

One critical concern is access to epinephrine onboard aircraft and what that could mean during an in flight emergency.

Joining us is No Nut Traveler president and food allergy advocate Lianne Mandelbaum to to unpack this important issue,

explain what travelers need to know, and to share practical strategies for flying more safely with food allergies.

Caroline: Welcome Lianne to FAACT's Roundtable Podcast. We're so happy you're here with us because we have a lot to talk about, there's a lot of things taking place and you're the one that's going to get us updated.

So welcome.

Lianne: Thank you. Thank you for having me again. It's always a pleasure.

Caroline: Wonderful. Before we take to the skies, let's

Caroline: start with your story.

Caroline: Can you share your family's food allergy journey and how your experience with air travel inspired you to create No Nut Traveler and become such a passionate and important advocate for safer flying?

Lianne: In a nutshell, no pun intended, we were flying home for a family vacation and there was another family seated behind us in the departure lounge and they overheard me tell my youngest child, Josh, who was 8 at the time, that he couldn't go into Rocky Mountain Fudge, a store in the airport with his brother and sister because they were handing out free samples of peanut butter fudge that day.

And the mom asked me,

does your son have a peanut allergy? And I said yes, he has a life threatening peanut allergy and she said, well, then you better move because we're all going to eat peanuts here.

And I appreciated the heads up. We're in the departure lounge, we were traveling with another family. Everybody had left their luggage with me because Josh and I were the only ones not eating airport food.

And so I'm like making several trips back and forth to move the luggage across the departure lounge.

And finally we sit down and her three boys followed us. And they started throwing peanuts up in the air, missing them in their mouths on purpose, crushing them underfoot, pushing the dust towards Josh and laughing.

So I began to become a little bit alarmed because I had found out they were on our Newark bound flight.

And so I stood on a customer service line to ask the airline if they could make an announcement once we got on the plane. There was a child with a life threatening peanut allergy in row eight.

And they told me it wasn't a customer service issue,

but the crew was under no onus to do it and this particular crew didn't want to do it and they didn't have to tell me why.

And so then I went through management at United and the last manager looked at me and looked at Josh and he said, well, if you think he's going to die, just don't get on the plane.

At which point Josh, who had never been scared of his allergy, started getting very frightened and said, I'm only eight, I have my whole life to live. Please don't make me get on the plane.

The man said, I could die. There are kids throwing peanuts at me.

So we didn't get on that plane.

And fast forwarding in my head,

for me personally,

Josh, even at age 8, wanted to play college tennis. And I'm thinking to myself, how on earth are we gonna get to all these tournaments if he can't fly safely?

And you know, if, if he wasn't good enough or he lost a match,

that, and he didn't make it, that would be one thing. But I was not gonna let a legitimate medical condition define him. And so I decided I was gonna change this.

And I did a Google search and found out that our story was the least egregious. People were being kicked off, people were being mocked.

It ran the gamut. It was enraging.

And I literally took out a sketch pad, sketched out what I wanted.

And one of my goals was to get the right medications on planes, because in my search I found out that airlines in the United States don't have to carry easy to use auto injectors at the time, that's all we had.

Now we have the nasal spray and we fast forward today and I thought that would be my easiest goal to check off. And it turns out it's the hardest goal to get this done.

And even when we got FAA reauthorization language in, after 10 years of advocating,

it's still come back with this fuzzy,

nefarious, like let the airlines choose type of which we can go into. So I mean,

it's amusing or not amusing that the goal I thought would be the easiest has turned out to be one of the most challenging.

Caroline: And listeners, I just want you to know that Leanne advocates on that governmental level, regulatory type level, but she also shares amazing information. And I do encourage everybody to go to the website, I will put it in the show notes because it gives a lot of information.

My kids who are now young adults personally use the website to help them with their air travels. And then also I just want you to know when you pre board,

this woman had her hand in that, that we have that ability now to pre board to wipe down. And Lianne, you have done so much and so thank you. I just wanna let you know how much we all appreciate you.

Lianne: Thank you for saying that means a lot.

Caroline: You're very welcome.

So now let's jump into our topic and let's just start with the big picture. What kinds of food allergy protocols do airlines currently offer for passengers with peanut tree nut or other allergies?

And then when it comes to staying safe in the air, what accommodations can passengers request and which protections are actually required,

available. But if you can just give us this kind of high level, we're going to get on an airplane. Now, where do we even begin?

Lianne: The first beginning step is to research the airline you're flying because unfortunately there are no federal regulations insofar as policies as to what an airline should do with you, if you even,

if they even have a place for you to disclose. And some of them make it easy and most of them make it very challenging if you can even find that place.

So you need to research your airline. And I am not saying, by the way, I want to be crystal clear that I think these inconsistencies or that people cannot expect to be necessarily respected in the air insofar as having a policy is okay, but we need to navigate the world as it is and then continue to advocate for as it should be.

So I'm going to talk as it is,

but don't think that I'm saying that I'm okay with the status Quo because I'm not. And believe it or not, things have gotten better.

But for every two steps forward, we've taken some steps back. So the one step back I do want to talk about.

So you gave me a little bit of a kudos for the pre board. And yes, one of the things I do on my website is I collect patient passenger testimonials from other food allergy adults and families.

And one of those testimonials led to a case brought in front of dot and it was the first time that was ruled that food allergy is a disability under the Air Carrier Access Act.

And your viewers should know that the ADA does not apply up in the air. I can't, I have lost count of how many people just like sue, sue, sue. This is an ADA violation.

You can't sue an airline in the United States.

And it is not an ADA violation. Only the air Carrier Access Acts applies in the air. But this particular case that we brought was the first time that they labeled food allergy a disability.

And I remember this.

Mary Vargas, the disability rights attorney I worked with called to tell me the decision and I had to pull over at the side of the road cause I was crying so hard because it was such a long shot.

It really was a long shot.

And so what we gleaned out of that decision is that anyone with a food allergy flying into the United States or going out of the United States has the right to pre board an airline.

And why pre board an airline? Let's talk about that for a second.

Because you can't control who sat in the seat before you. And they may have been shelling your allergen. They may have been having Cheetos. If your allergy is dairy, whatever your allergy is, there is unknown substance potentially at your seat.

The planes are not cleaned thoroughly. The first plane of the day is usually the cleanest. But you know, we can't always do that time wise. And yes, it's very important to get in on and clean.

But recently in the last year or two we noticed Southwest specifically was denying people the right to pre board. And so we brought a, again a complaint. And they came back and said that they were in compliance and for peanut and tree nut.

And so what ended up happening recently is that DOT said you can only pre board with a peanut or a tree nut allergy.

If those are the allergies you have, I suggest that those are the allergies. You tell them that you're pre boarding with or you just say you're pre boarding for A food allergy.

I'm hoping that the airlines don't get into the stickiness of it and we're going to have to address it at some point.

It doesn't seem to be that this particular time is right yet or that we've found the right case, but we are definitely looking at it to strategize. But my advice is always to get on.

That is the one guaranteed, right,

that we should have to be able to get on and clean our seat early.

But don't freak out if you can't. You can still do a pretty good job cleaning. It is definitely more challenging, but you can do it. You can do it.

So I don't want anyone to be scared to travel because they don't fall into the peanut tree nut category. And we haven't overwhelmingly started to see testimonials of people being turned down.

In fact, the ones that I'm getting of people being turned down have the peanut and tree nut. So,

you know, airlines are continuing to do what, what they were doing before, and we're going to continue to try to hold them responsible.

So that's something that you should be able to do is pre board.

But you need to research your airline's policy because, for example, American Airlines is very clear that they will not do anything. They will not. If you have a tree nut allergy, they won't suspend the tree nuts even to the person next to you.

They won't tell the cabin. The only thing they'll do is they'll let you pre board.

And we think that they carry the right medications on planes, but they won't confirm it. So we are not even sure about that. And I have asked research your policies and what if American is the only airline that gets you to your destination?

I'm cognizant of that. So I'm not saying you're at fault.

However,

forearmed is forewarned and you can plan in your head how you're going to deal with that when they don't. Maybe you'll have a script in your head to talk to the passengers next to you and not even ask them for help because you know it's not in their policy.

You know, there, there are strategies that you can use.

So do your research. If you're really, really concerned about exposure on the plane, speak to your physician.

You can use the Facebook groups to get your questions to your medical professional, whoever they are.

But if you're really worried, I would say talk to your doctor,

have a letter from them that says, this is my patient. They have a food allergy and they need to travel with their safe food and medication because there are people who will stop you at TSA with your food.

It does help to have a letter.

There's a program called TSA Cares. I suggest that if you're worried about your food being tampered with and when I mean tampered, I know you've had this issue, Caroline, where someone doesn't change their gloves where they're touching your safe food.

And I actually had someone, a no, not traveler had their safe food for an international flight ruined because someone stuck the gloves in the pureed sweet potato for a child.

So I think if they had been registered with TSA carers that that could have been avoided. And that's an just, just type in your Google search TSA Cares. It will come up.

You get a, you get an agent that will help you walk through the process. And that's something most people don't know about and can be really, really useful if you're stressed on the day of travel.

So you can do that. You can clean your area whether you've pre boarded or you've gotten on afterwards. Get all the surfaces that you could be in contact with.

And here's one of the most important things that you can do.

Don't take the airline meal.

No matter the assurances you could have a very well intentioned flight attendant.

There was a testimonial that comes to mind of Alaska era about a month ago where two people took the salad.

The flight attendants went through the list and the ingredients didn't have anything that had to do with nuts. Two people accepted it, they both went into anaphylaxis. And it turns out there was a last minute ingredient switch.

And so you might be thinking, but that's illegal, Leanne. Like you can't just switch an ingredient and not label for it. And that might be true of your packaged food on the ground, but it is not true in the air.

Labels in the air don't have to be complete.

So I had someone go into anaphylaxis from pasta and red sauce. The label said may contain egg,

wheat, milk. It did not say tree nuts. She reacted.

I contacted the fda. They told me it's a perfectly legal label, that they encourage transparency but they don't require it.

So the best thing you could do to ensure your safety on a flight is to not take that meal because the label actually gives you a false sense of security.

You might think you're reading the same kind of label on the ground and the Flight attendant probably doesn't know either. And we had a recent death come, come from 2024.

We have a recent death that just surfaced because of a lawsuit, because it was from.

I know I said to you, you can't sue in the United States, but this is something that came from an international plane heading into the US and there is something called the Montreal Convention and that's how we know the details.

This young man was handed a sandwich that they assured was safe,

was not carrying the right medications. The medications on the plane didn't work.

I'm sure the flight attendant had the best intentions and probably looked at an incomplete ingredient list and thought the sandwich was safe.

So what I'm telling you, and I don't want to scare you insofar as a death, but don't take the meal. It's an easy fix.

Get on the plane early,

clean your area. If you don't get on early, clean your area, research your policy,

talk to your doctor and don't take the food.

Do your own research. Bring non perishables. Pack it in your carry on, pack it in. Whoever you're traveling with, carry on. In case your luggage gets lost and your safe food is there, you've got to think about delays that you could with what goes on with the airports these days.

You could be on a tarmac for hours. What are you gonna do without safe food? That's where your non perishables come into play.

Always, always, always bring your medication with you and don't put it under the plane. I know that oftentimes if you're boarding late or you're boarding in the last group,

they can gate check your luggage. And so another reason to pre board.

But if you can't, you know, you're just running late or they switch planes and you're running to get another plane. Just make sure you've taken that safe medication out. Because I have taken testimonials of people going into anaphylaxis.

And where is that safe medication? Under the plane. And the airlines, again,

don't have to carry the right medications to treat anaphylaxis in a quick manner. So you'll want your medication there so that someone can treat you or you could treat yourself quickly.

Caroline: That was a great answer and thank you so much. And just tagging onto the carry on. I make sure that when my children are flying or I'm even flying that you know how you get a carry on and a personal bag that you put like under the seat in front of you.

I make sure all the Medications are in that because even if you put your carry on above, if they're experiencing turbulence, they don't let you out of your seat to pull anything down.

So I always make sure very good food.

Yeah, the food and the medications are down below. And then I have asthma.

So what I personally do is I take the inhaler out and I put it in my pocket.

Caroline: And so I usually have a jacket

Caroline: with extra pockets in it and I just put my meds or whatever I need in there.

I also like that you mentioned TSA cares. So I will find the link and put that in the show notes. I think that's really important. I appreciate you bringing that up.

And then also what really struck me too is when you mentioned that the labels in the air don't apply. And I think we all believe that they do. And I just think that's such a critical, important point that all of us really need to pay attention to that.

It really is the wild West. If you are accepting food on a plane that's not prepackaged from a company, you know, like some of the airlines offer made good or undercover quinoa or certain brands that we know.

Lianne: Yes, those you can count on. Those you can count on. But no, you can't count on a label being accurate no matter what assurances.

For example, I there I have just taken three testimonials from people who reacted to the carrot hummus on American Airlines in business class. That comes with the sliders and there's ground cashew in there.

And nowhere in there is is there a label or any indication that there's a nut in this carrot hummus.

And two of the people were assured it was safe. One did not disclose and just assumed that hummus would be safe.

And the other two actually asked the flight attendants and you know, they, they were assured it was okay. And only afterwards when they went back and did due diligence, did the flight attendant say, oh yes, there's cashew in there.

And it was too late then. And thank thankfully,

you know, that person was that reacted both of one had an EpiPen and one went to the ER upon landing. But we could have very different situations.

I think people are remarkably fortunate that this didn't turn out to be one of those tragedies. And that's one of the reasons I still advocate so hard and I need everyone's help listening today to require airlines in the United States to carry the right medications.

And by the way, if you're listening to this and you're an international flyer, this Affects you too. I always say, like flying is not us to us.

We fly out of the U.S. we come back into the U.S. and so you may very well be on these planes as well.

You might not necessarily be flying a carrier from your own country.

So you can write into the FAA as well.

What has happened is, like I said, we have been lobbying for over a decade to have the right medications be put on planes.

And,

and at the moment, what we have is a prescriptive list.

It hasn't been updated since 2004. And no, you didn't hear me wrong. It hasn't been updated since 2004.

So what this prescriptive list has is a requirement for a vial of allergic epinephrine.

And I have been interviewing physicians for over a decade as the airline correspondent for Allergic Living. And many of them have found this vial not to be there or only the cardiac concentration, which has to be titrated in a completely different fashion.

So our focus has been on let's get rid of the vials and let's put on an easy to use auto injector.

And as it became FDA approved the nasal spray.

And we lobbied for over a decade and finally the language got put into FAA reauthorization that by Congress, that FAA needed to address not just anaphylaxis, but eight other conditions.

So we were really, really hopeful.

And what ended up coming down just in the last month is that they want the airlines to be flexible and modern, but there's no definition for modern.

And in their definition of flexible,

they say that in treating anaphylaxis, which is great that they mentioned that it's one of the conditions to actually be aware of you.

The medical kit could contain medicine such as epinephrine. It could contain such as. That's not acceptable to me. That is saying it could not contain. Right. If it's could, it could be.

Could not.

They also took away the vial. And I believe they took away the vial because they wanted to encourage the airlines to carry the newer modern devices. But in taking away the vial, when you go back to that Alaska Air case I told you about, there was a adult woman and then there was a child.

So the way that the new FAA ruling is, is written is that it doesn't specify quantity. So what if there's only one auto injector or nasal spray? And what if it doesn't have a pediatric counterpart?

And what if there are two people like here that reacted who gets the one device?

It's not,

it doesn't say it anywhere. About quantity. It doesn't specify whether it's pediatric or adult. And there are FDA devices that are specific to populations.

And obviously we want to have more than one because people can go into a biphasic reaction and, or there could be more than one person like on this flight.

But we also want the backup of the 1mg vial in case it gets used,

because we don't want to then only have the cardiac vial that has the titration.

So what we really need in a nutshell, again using the word, no pun intended, we need people to write in to tell the FAA that epinephrine needs to be specified to be in the kit.

It needs to be specified in an easy to use form. It needs to be in the right quantity that can be quickly used, and it needs to be in a dosage that's appropriate across the age of spans.

That's what we need because right now the document is open to commentary.

And this is a window. There's not often times in the life of legislation where you get to change something,

where you get to say,

I object, like, this needs to be made better. There are some good things, but this needs to be made better. We don't know when the next time this will be opened again to commentary to change.

Congress has issued that this needs to be done.

They close the comments after a month. And if they don't hear from enough of us,

last time I checked, there were well over 800 comments, but there's 33 million of us with food allergies. When you look at the numbers that way, we're woefully underrepresented.

Everyone needs to comment.

Don't think that you're going to let Caroline comment or you're going to let me comment or you're going to let your friend comment because your comment doesn't matter.

Your comment matters.

Every comment matters.

And the FAA is looking at all the comments.

You can relay why it's important to you. If you've had a reaction on a plane, you can talk about it. If you've had a reaction on the ground and it went really quickly and you want to then say, if that happened in the air, if there was a vial,

there wouldn't have been time to save you or your child. Whatever your personal experience is, if you haven't had any reactions at all,

but you want the right medication there,

that's your story to tell.

Whatever your story is to tell, tell it. And, and use your voice. Use your voice. We, we, we have an opportunity here and, and it's closing.

The aperture is getting slower and slower and smaller and smaller as we get towards October 5, which is the last day that comments will be accepted. And so this is where I say I need you.

Caroline: And can you tell us how do we find the link or how do we find this comment page where we can.

Lianne: I'll give you the direct link. I can also give you the link to my allergic living article that has it right in there as well. But I'll give you both.

I'll give you both.

And in my Allergic Living article,

you will get like the details of what's in this bill, the meat of it and what needs to change. And so you could get some good details in there to write your own comment also.

No, not traveler, our grassroots army. I did send out a letter that gave people templates,

so I can also give you a link to that if you like.

Caroline: That would be fantastic. And I will put those in the show notes. But as you can hear listeners, this is really important.

And so, Leanne, as you were talking,

I was already writing down a list of different people that I'm going to email personally and then ask them to reach out to their group and reach

Lianne: out to your local legislator and have them write in a comment.

Reach out to people in your preschool, reach out to people in your high school class. Like, reach again. There are 33 million of us and we're powerful if we band together.

But if we don't,

you know, this is an opportunity where change really could happen and it may not.

Caroline: This is a great suggestion, especially about reaching out to our legislator. I completely forgot that.

Lianne: Yeah, I mean, they may not even know that this is an issue for you as their constituent, that, that you're worried about travel. And they should know.

They should know.

Caroline: Well, this has been great with giving us this information.

Again,

we need to take action to help keep not only our family safe, but everybody safe. So I really appreciate that discussion.

Lianne: And you may, you may,

you may think that this doesn't apply to you because you always carry your auto injector,

your child always carries their auto injector.

But let me tell you, the best of us,

the most responsible,

have forgotten.

And that's because we're human and we are held to a standard of perfection that is just impossible.

And there but for the grace of God, nothing has happened on those times that we've forgotten or our child has forgotten.

You may have a young child now. Please know teenagers,

they're not the same.

They don't remember. Sometimes people have the embarrassment factor, which is why we lobby so hard to have these in public spaces.

This matters to you, too. I've also had people who were carrying their auto injectors that needed backup on a plane that had such a bad reaction that they needed that third dose.

Don't think it can't happen to you. We prepare for the worst in the airline EMK and hope that we never have to use it. But we need to say if you're going to be prepared for the worst,

this is what you need to have on board. If you're going to allow this lax labeling system that is just so convoluted and ridiculous that it actually gives the appearance of,

of labeling for something that's what makes it so dangerous, then we can not only we can foresee these situations happening and we can predict them. And that's why we need to hold and so should the FAA.

They should know that this is what the FDA allows on planes. And it's completely foreseeable, just like it's foreseeable that someone may need oxygen in the air. It is foreseeable when you serve meals and you don't label properly that allergic reactions will occur in the air.

And you need to be prepared for it. And we need to say this is your responsibility. This is a public health issue and

Caroline: it's a simple solution.

I think that's the part that gets me so much, is it doesn't take a lot. There is a cost to it, yes, but the cost of a death is a million times greater.

And that's what frustrates me. And so that's why I'm so happy you're doing this work, because we can speak up. And you're right, we do forget things. So thank you for mentioning that as well.

Lianne: And you bringing that up actually brings me So I of course, have read the nprm, which is the ruling that the FAA issued multiple times and,

you know, highlighted it and redlined it and this and that. And one of the things that has struck me is all over this document is the cost to the FAA that they're saving and the cost to the operator, which is the airline.

But what you just said, the cost of a life is just not in there.

Not the allergic life. There might be other conditions that they, you know, they seem to either prioritize or put in the, you know, the first, for example,

opioid reversals are being put in the first aid kits, which means flight attendants can use them.

To me, and it's the same exact formulation as the nasal epinephrine.

And it Also specifies that it could be in needle form as well. And yet there's not an urgency to put epinephrine, auto injectors or nasal sprays in the first aid kit.

And it makes absolutely no sense to me.

There's so many things about this document that don't make sense. And I think the more we point that out,

you know, the more maybe they'll sit and think about it. I mean, I have, believe me, I have asked the FAA,

you know, is this because there is a suggested list? It's not a prescribed list like we have now, but on that suggested list is an auto injector or nasal spray,

but it's not binding. It says that in the next sentence. So it looks, it looks good until you read the fine print. And when I reached out to the faa, they say that they're not going to comment on it.

So if they're not going to comment on it, we're going into this ruling blind.

Basically,

if they can't say it will be required and it will be there,

then we have to lobby for that to be. So if they can't say it, we need to demand it.

Caroline: Well, and now we have the opportunity to with this. So, you know, again, listeners, please make sure you just stop at the show notes. I'm gonna have all the links in there, so it'll be very easy for you.

And now moving on to just one little last thing. You're going to be joining us at FAACT's Allergy Summit next month, and you are definitely a summit veteran.

So can you give us just a little bit of your thoughts on the summit and then your session?

Lianne: Well, the summit is a great way to socialize,

meet,

talk,

learn,

engage.

It's a safe space.

It's an educational space. It's a fun space.

And I will be talking all things airlines. Maybe I'll have an update because it'll be past the October 5th. Maybe I'll be able to say thank you. All the people that listened to this podcast wrote in and were way over,

you know, the amount of comments. I thought so I hope that's what I get to share. I'd love to get to meet some of the listeners in person and hear your airline stories because as always, I am still collecting them.

And if you don't share your airline stories with me, it's like they never happened. So that's, you know, part of why my advocacy exists is to make sure that these testimonials get shared.

Check it out. It's fun.

Caroline: I have to say I'm biased I mean, obviously I'm working with fact, but even beyond that, or just like what Leanda's saying is you meet people and you get these connections.

And it's at events like this where advocacy takes place and projects begin and fun happens. So I do hope everyone considers joining us. I'll put a link in the show notes as well.

There's going to be a lot in the show notes, so just make sure you all stop in over there. But I want to make sure you have all the information from this podcast there.

So, Lianne, thank you so much for your time.

Lianne: Yeah. The only other thing I would leave your listeners with is share the podcast because maybe people don't. Again, what I said, I meet a lot of people, say, this doesn't concern me.

I always carry share it with people because you don't know if this is what will save a life. And maybe that will light the match under them to write their comment.

And also just, you know, we all need to take a little bit of humble pie sometimes. Like, we're not perfect. And that's okay.

That's okay. It's okay to realize you're not perfect. But that's why we have emergency kits in different places, because people aren't perfect.

Caroline: Very true. So now, before we say goodbye, is there anything else you want our listeners to hear from you?

Lianne: No, just,

you know,

I want to tell you that you can fly safely. It's a lot better than, you know, when we started this work. We have places to go, but we've come pretty far and just realize that we have to navigate the system as it is and be kind to the flight crew.

They don't know the labels aren't complete. It's not their fault. They haven't gotten food allergy training, which is not required, and this new ruling doesn't require it. The other thing this new ruling doesn't do is track allergic reactions.

Nobody tracks them. So it might be a great thing to add into your letter that you'd like the FAA to track them because it says it's going to reevaluate every few years based upon what's going on, the medical data.

But there is no good data on airlines, so,

you know, it's a good thing to insist on that. And I think that we've made great strides and we can fly safely. But please,

if you leave this podcast with nothing else, don't take the airline meal.

Caroline: Excellent advice. Well, Leanne, thank you so much for your time and look forward to seeing you very soon.

Lianne: Thank you.

Caroline: Same before we say goodbye today. I just want to pause for one more moment to say thank you to ARS Pharma for being a kind sponsor of FAACT's roundtable podcast.

Caroline: And please note, today's guest was not sponsored by or paid by ARS Pharma to participate in this specific podcast.

Caroline: Thank you for listening to Facts Roundtable Podcast. Stay tuned for future episodes coming soon.

Please subscribe, subscribe, leave a review and listen to our podcast on Pandora, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio and Stitcher.

Have a great day and always be

Caroline: kind to one another.