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Hi All--

First of all, I agree with everything posted on this subject recently and in no way intend to undermine all of the hard work people have spent on putting together guidelines for celiacs during times of disaster. However.....

No amount of preparation and stockpiling will help celiacs when their homes and cars are destroyed. This can happen during flooding, tornados, earthquakes, terrorist attacks - usually those times when one has no prior warning and all is lost but one's life.

I suppose I feel that the Red Cross should, in some way, be prepared to deal with people with celiac disease. They provide ways for people to obtain medication - how that's done, I'm not entirely sure. Food is our medication. We can't have bread, but we can have many things the Red Cross provides in the way of food for others - tuna, peanut butter, potatoes, rice, fruit etc. - it would simply need to be brands that are guaranteed gluten free.

I don't pretend to know how the Red Cross obtains its food for large natural disasters, but considering the rate at which celiac disease is being diagnosed now, I think we deserve to expect at least a minimum amount of safe food. Perhaps the national organizations could work with the Red Cross to provide lists of brands of gluten free food items. As a result, though this is probably stretching, maybe more (or at least some) food manufacturers would make an effort to reformulate some of their food items. People without celiac disease can eat everything we can eat (speaking only of gluten here), so why not provide a majority of food items that are gluten free, mainstream, straight from a grocery store, not a health food store.

Basically, I think my point is that there will be times that we are not going to be able to feed outselves and we are going to have to depend on help from others. So, what needs to be done to see that the Red Cross or another similar organization is prepared for us?

Ayn in Alabama



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