12-year-old girls Twix milkshake death exposes how even safe foods can be dangerous

A 12-year-old’s death from a Twix milkshake has highlighted an insidious way even so-called “safe foods” can prove deadly to people with severe nut allergies.The victim, Mia Shay St Hilaire, had reportedly ordered the sweet beverage at the Pop Inn in London while visiting with her aunt and sister.While the shake didn’t have any tree nuts — the source of her life-threatening allergy — she subsequently “developed rapidly progressing anaphylaxis” and ended up collapsing at her aunt’s home.Despite being rushed to the hospital, the youngster tragically passed away shortly after arriving, the coroner’s office said.How did this supposedly benign beverage cost St Hilaire her life? According to CCTV reports, the restaurant’s owner Baris Yucel had used the same blender to whip up a hazelnut-harboring Kinder Bueno milkshake and didn’t wash it before prepping the preteen’s order — an issue known as allergen cross-contact.

“No family should ever have to lose a child in these circumstances,” the girl’s parents said in a statement, adding that they wanted to use their daughter’s tragedy to help “save lives in the future.”While her death might seem like a freak occurrence, cross-contact is more common than one might think.According to a 2024 study, cross-contact accounted for 29% of the unintentional food allergen exposures reported by participants in a Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) registry, 77% of whom reported at least one accidental exposure.“There’s a lot of fear around food allergies and things like this are the reason why,” Dr.

Ruchi Gupta, founding director of the Center for Food Allergy & Asthma Research (CFAAR), told the Post.“When you know that you can have an accidental exposure like this and then have a death happen is just horrible.”This is problematic given that each year in the US, 3.4 million patients (the population of Oklahoma) visit the emergency room due to a food allergy reaction, accordin...