In 1962, some workers in an American textile factory came down with a mysterious infection that caused numbness, dizziness and vomiting. Basically, it had all the symptoms of a bad flu. But workers said it was no flu — the sickness was the result of a sudden infestation of mysterious venomous insects. If you got bitten, you got sick.
There was only one problem: No such bug was ever discovered in the factory, or anywhere else. They never existed. The venomous June bug was completely fictional.
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The claim that 150 to 200 people die each year from anaphylaxis is grossly exaggerated. In 2004, the Centers for Disease Control cited just 14 deaths due to anaphylaxis. The only known registry of deaths from anaphylaxis noted 33 deaths between 1994 and 1999. Remember, all of these estimates refer to the total number of people who had an anaphylactic reaction for any reason, not just from peanuts or other foods.
