When Aaron Peterson was a baby, his mother, Shelly, realized something wasn't right.

"When he was a little boy he had exema on his face, he had a hard time with digesting things and kind of crabby," says Shelly.

Since Aaron's twin Samantha wasn't having any of these health problems, Shelly was confused.

After months of trial and error, she discovered Aaron has food allergies.

"With twins, Samantha had nothing and so I always tried to compare the two of them. Why is Aaron doing this and why is Samantha doing this and it was very frustrating," says Shelly.

With the severity of Aaron's allergies he, like many other kids with allergies, has to carry around what's called an EpiPen.

"It goes right into the thigh and it goes through the clothing and you hold it for 10 seconds and then you massage it for 10 seconds and then you call 911," says Kim Werhan with the Northland Food Allergy Support Group.

A recent study by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows since 1997, children's food allergies have increased by 18–percent.

Despite the rise, there are still no federal guidelines for schools to follow to protect students with allergies.

"Foods and how they're prepared and what they contain are really difficult for food servers to be able to identify correctly," says school nurse Susan Sederberg.

Duluth school officials have always said they will work with individual students and parents to ensure their safety.

But the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network feels that's not enough.
The group has a bill in the Senate mandating national school guidelines for handling student allergies.

"A lot of schools are on their own and they really don't know how to handle it, if they haven't had to deal with it before," says Werhan.

There are no federal requirements for restaurants either.

That's why it's vital that servers are alerted to potential problems whenever someone with severe allergies comes in.

"When a customer brings a food allergy to our attention, we really try to listen carefully, we go as far as cooking it separately, and bring out ingredient lists and we really want to ensure that the customer is safe," says Duluth Grill owner Tom Hanson.

As for Shelly, she just wants to see her little boy stay healthy.

"It takes a whole community to keep our kids safe and it truly does," says Shelly.

For more information on food allergies, there will be a Food Allergy Seminar held this Saturday in the St. Luke's hospital auditorium from 9:30 A–M until 2:30 in the afternoon.

To register for the conference you can log onto
www.minnesotafoodallergy.org/conference/register.html