About 10% of people report a penicillin allergy, but only 10% of them actually have it. The other 90% who thought they had an allergy are just fine. What's going on?
penicillin
An op-ed by family medicine practitioner Victoria Dooley, MD, in today s New York Times discusses the problems engendered when people who say they are allergic to certain antibiotics actually aren t and why this is a deadly problem.
Dr. A. Zuger's NYTimes column presents an excellent discussion of penicillin allergies, both real, exaggerated, and severe and how to deal with them.