American children with food allergies are suffering life-threatening--and completely avoidable--reactions because manufacturers mislabel their products and regulators fail to police store shelves, a Tribune investigation has found.

In effect, children are used as guinea pigs, with the government and industry often taking steps to properly label a product only after a child has been harmed.

The Tribune investigation revealed that the government rarely inspects food to find problems and doesn't punish companies that repeatedly violate labeling laws.

In disclosing ingredients, labels must clearly identify major allergens such as peanuts, milk, eggs and wheat. Millions of parents, teachers and baby-sitters scrutinize these labels to ensure that they are not giving children unsafe food.

But an alarming number of products sold as allergen-free actually contain harmful amounts, the Tribune found.

Many of the problems occur with foods marketed to children--candy, cookies, cakes and ice cream. Iconic childhood favorites such as Oreos, Pop-Tarts, Frosted Flakes, Jello-O and Campbell's Spaghettios have been recalled for hidden allergens in recent years.

An estimated 30,000 Americans require emergency-room treatment and 150 die each year from allergic reactions to food. A large percentage were children, researchers say.

To determine the full scope of the problem, the Tribune created an unprecedented computer database of 2,800 recalls related to food allergies over the last 10 years. The newspaper found that roughly five products a week are recalled because of hidden allergens, making it one of the top reasons any consumer product in America is recalled.

But that doesn't mean the government or companies are vigilant.

Take the example of Peggy Pridemore, a Kentucky woman who bought Wellshire Kids' Dinosaur Shapes Chicken Bites because her son Patrick has a severe wheat allergy. Bold letters on the packaging said the item was "gluten free," or contained no wheat, rye and barley proteins.

After Patrick, then 3, ate the nuggets in December, he started coughing, his eyes swelled and he had trouble breathing. His mom jabbed his leg with a large needle containing epinephrine, a drug to help him breathe, then raced him to the hospital, where he recovered in the emergency room.

Pridemore said she contacted both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the food manufacturer and that neither offered to test the chicken nuggets.

The Tribune recently bought the product on two occasions at a River Forest supermarket and sent the samples to one of the nation's leading food-allergy labs, at the University of Nebraska. Both times, the lab found gluten. The item remains on shelves across the U.S.

"I'm stunned it hasn't been recalled," Pridemore said. "I thought somebody somewhere would do something."

Recalls swell, but misleadThe nation has seen a mysterious rise since the 1990s in the number of children with food allergies, now estimated to be 3 million kids, or 1 in every 25 children.

As awareness has skyrocketed so have recalls. But they are voluntary. Food companies themselves--not regulators--decide whether to do so. If they do, the companies work with regulators to coordinate the recalls and issue news releases to inform the public.

Yet the official recall statements by the Food and Drug Administration often downplay the true risks or lack basic information, such as where the tainted products were sold. One reason for the soft pedaling: The FDA allows the food companies to write their own recalls.

A recent recall statement, for instance, read more like an advertisement than a warning. "While the product is good and wholesome," it stated, "these soups may contain wheat or soy as ingredients not identified on the label."

In many cases, the government and companies never inform consumers. The Tribune found that nearly half of the allergy-related recalls in the last 10 years were not announced to the public. This was true even in dozens of cases where the FDA classified products as likely to cause serious harm or death.

Alarms sounded by consumers seldom result in products being pulled.

The Tribune examined 260 complaints to the FDA since 2001 where people with known food allergies--many of them children who had to be treated at hospitals--reported a reaction from products they claimed were mislabeled. Yet just 7 percent resulted in recalls.

Even when authorities concluded a product was at fault, the regulatory wheels moved slowly. On average, it took 32 days to issue a recall.

In one case, a girl, 14, with a known milk allergy was taken to the emergency room after eating muffins made from Duncan Hines chocolate chip mix. The illness was reported to the FDA, but the distributor, Pinnacle Foods, did not recall the mix until seven months later.

When asked by the Tribune why the recall took so long, Pinnacle said it immediately had the product tested but found no milk. A few months later, the company received a second complaint of an allergic reaction to the mix. Pinnacle said it investigated, this time finding a likely culprit overlooked before: a batch of chocolate chips.

Many manufacturers test their products for allergens and have set up special assembly lines to prevent cross-contamination. But other companies, particularly small ones with limited resources, acknowledge taking limited precautions.

Others do little or no testing, and the government does not require them to do so.

The FDA, which oversees the vast majority of packaged foods, said it trusts firms to police themselves.

The USDA, which regulates meat, poultry and egg products, is even more lax. It said it never tests for undeclared allergens, such as eggs or peanuts, because these ingredients by themselves are not prohibited foods--ignoring the fact that products containing hidden allergens are potentially illegal and deadly.

Testing shows riskThis broken system leaves families vulnerable.

Pridemore recalled how she bought Wellshire Kids' dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, made by New Jersey-based Wellshire Farms, because the item specifically claimed to be gluten free. She also found the same claim on the Wellshire Farms Web site.