Girl dies from kiss

last updated 8 January 2015

Quebec City

A Quebec girl with an acute allergy to peanuts died after kissing her boyfriend, who had just eaten a peanut-butter-filled snack. Christina Desforges, 15, went into anaphylactic shock shortly after the kiss, and died a few days later in a Quebec City hospital. Nuts, milk, eggs, and shellfish are the most common food allergies, but peanuts cause allergic reactions with the greatest fatal potential. About 1.5 million people in the U.S. have severe peanut allergies. Exposure to tiny traces can set off an attack, said allergy researcher Ernest Seidman, with mere “peanut vapors” triggering a potentially fatal attack of asthma.