Most People Who Think They Are Allergic To Penicillin Are Not.

Many Americans may check the box "allergic to penicillin" on medical forms, but new research suggests that most of them are mistaken. Follow-up testing revealed that most people who believed they were allergic to penicillin were actually not allergic to the antibiotic, according to two new studies. In one study, 94 percent of 384 people who believed they were allergic to penicillin tested negative for penicillin allergy. And in the second study, penicillin skin testing was performed on 38 people who believed they were allergic to the antibiotic, and all of them tested negative for such an allergy. The studies were to be presented Friday at the annual meeting of American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), in Atlanta. "A large number of people in our study who had a history of penicillin allergy were actually not allergic," Dr. Thanai Pongdee, lead author of the first study, said in an ACAAI news release. "They may have had an unfavorable response to penicillin at some point in the past, such as hives or swelling, but they did not demonstrate any evidence of penicillin allergy at the current time," Pongdee explained. http://consumer.healthday.com/respiratory-and-allergy-information-2/misc-allergy-news-17/think-you-re-allergic-to-penicillin-maybe-not-693288.html