My 9 yr old son is highly allergic to sesame and had a recent near anaphylaxis reaction to sesame consumption from a salad dressing that contained sesame but sesame wasn’t declared as an allergen.If we ever go out to restaurants to eat he can’t take bread and anything with secret spices and sometimes as simple as pasta dish as sesame is being used more abundantly nowadays.Pizza also is tough for the most part as flour for dough may have traces of sesame.Its a shame that we are far behind the countries like Canada and European countries as they are much more aware and declare sesame as one of the top allergen.I hope to see sesame in the list of declared allergen as there is an tremendous rise in the number of children with this allergy.

As a four month old, my son was diagnosed with sesame allergy.   We attempted a food challenge with his allergist at age three years.   He had "severe life-threatening reaction" (doctor's words) to the smallest dose, equal to about one seed.   Continuing to avoid all "natural flavor" and " spice" when companies will not disclose ingredients to us is difficult.  Now, as an almost nine year old, he has never eaten in a restaurant.  Navigating these school aged years is difficult and handling exclusions from parties and food outings with friends placed us in a position to food challenge him again.  Last week, he again failed a challenge of a trace amount of sesame and our full avoidance continues. It is very frustrating that US companies can disguise sesame with a label when other countries require disclosure of this information for a growing, serious allergen.  

Thank you for helping families like ours declare sesame as an ingredient that must be labeled.  

I also want to add that sesame is also used in bath and body care products. It and mustard are incredibly hard allergens to stay away from because they could be "natural flavors" or "spices." We don't buy any processed foods or eat at restaurants. Bakeries have sesame seeds everywhere!