Nope. Luckily for kids with peanut allergies, this appears to be yet another urban legend that’s making the rounds in cyberspace and, not long ago, on Boston TV.
The allegation is that AquaFresh for Kids contains peanut oil and that the product does not have to say so on the label because a law passed last year called the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act only mandates that food products (not non-food items like toothpaste) list 8 major allergens on product labels.
A spokeswoman for the manufacturer of AquaFresh for Kids, GlaxoSmithKline said emphatically that there is no peanut oil in any of its AquaFresh toothpastes. A spokeswoman for The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, a major nonprofit group that seeks to raise awareness of food allergies, said her group had checked the allegation carefully with Glaxo and agrees that the allegation is “not accurate.”
The fuss started several months ago when two Massachusetts mothers became concerned that their children had become sick after using the toothpaste. One consumer called Glaxo, according to the company spokeswoman said, and was told by a consumer relations person who “erred on the side of caution” that it was a “possibility” that the product contained peanut oil and that more information was not immediately available. “The consumer was told to treat it as if it may contain it [peanut oil] because they didn’t have that information,” said the spokeswoman, Lori Lukus.
There are many hazards out there, especially for kids with serious allergies, but toothpaste, thank goodness, does not appear to be one of them.