Texas' new food allergy awareness law inspired by tragedy
Across the state, restaurants are now being required to display food allergy awareness posters in the hopes of saving lives. It's a requirement that began with a South Texas mother who lost her 24-year-old son to someone's "ignorance" of allergens.
The Sergio Lopez Food Allergy Awareness Act
The Sergio Lopez Food Allergy Awareness Act, or Senate Bill 812, was authored by Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo. It passed the Texas Senate on April 6 and was filed without the governor's signature on June 18, 2023.
The law will require restaurants to display a standardized poster with information about food "allergies and responses to allergic reactions." It must include information about the risk of an allergic reaction to a food allergen, symptoms of an allergic reaction, the major food allergens, the procedures for preventing an allergic reaction, and appropriate responses to help a person having an allergic reaction.
It will also require food training programs and for the food certification manager exam to include allergies as the subject.
Restaurants applying for new or renewed certifications after September 1, 2024, will be required to display the poster. The law officially went into effect on September 1, 2023, but now all restaurants will be required to display the posters across Texas.
Who was Sergio Lopez?
The new requirement comes through the hard work of a determined mother who worked to not let her son's death go in vain. Belinda Vaca shared her son's story with MySA.
On June 25, 2014, Sergio Alexander Lopez was on his lunch break when he ordered a veggie taco from a McAllen restaurant and asked if the order had peanuts. He was told no. Lopez received the order and asked again, and he was told no a second time.
He took the order to go and began eating the food in front of the music academy he worked at when he felt an allergic reaction. For a final time, Lopez called the restaurant to check the ingredients, and they told him the reaction he was feeling was "just spices."
As his throat began to close, Lopez ran into his work for help, and his final words were, "They lied to me, they lied to me."
A co-worker drove Lopez to a hospital, who was banging windows on the inside of the car, struggling to breathe. Along the way, they saw a private ambulance and stopped the car. Lopez got out and attempted to wave it down with his arms before passing out.
Since learning of his allergy at 3 years old, Sergio has had a few close scares, but none that took his life. It's not something his mother thought could happen, so when she heard the news of her son in the hospital, she figured it'd be something minor.
When Vaca arrived at the hospital to pick up her son, they pulled her to a room where Sergio was filled with tubes in a coma. He died the next day in the early morning.
"About midnight, they told me to leave the room, and all these people swarmed into his room. They called me back and said, 'We're sorry, you could come in. Your son, his heart stopped.' and I lost my only son," Vaca said, recalling when her son passed away.
A mother's fight for justice
Under a guise, Vaca returned to the restaurant that served her son the allergen with a co-worker. Her friend pretended to "really like" the veggie taco and asked what the ingredients were. The owner told them it was peanut butter.
"She told him, 'my friend just lost her son this morning because you told him no. He asked three times, and you told him no, that it doesn't have peanuts," she recalled. The owner responded by saying "Oh well he asked for peanuts, this has peanut butter."
"My son died because of someone's ignorance," Vaca said.
As her son had made plans to move to Austin before his death, his mother had already made steps to transfer there as well to be closer to him. She got an interview and go the job after his death.
Her new office was two blocks away from the Capitol. She says it felt like "God put everything there" for her to fight for her son. She started with senators and representatives from the Rio Grande Valley and was told the first step to helping others would be to make a bill. Senator Eddie Lucio Jr. from Brownsville was the first to sponsor her.
From there, she put in the work and made flyers and T-shirts to get her message out. She noted that she funded all her materials alone.
"I did not do a GoFund Me page. When I made my T-shirts, I paid for them myself," Vaca said. "I didn't want to make any many. How could I make money out of my son," Vaca said.
Along the way, she made several connections with other families who lost children of their own to food allergies and received backing from doctors. In the end, the bill was passed.
"When people say it's just a poster, I say that poster is going to bring so much awareness to the restaurant. A lot of people in restaurants don't know that food allergies are fatal," Vaca said.
Keeping her son's legacy alive
Moving forward, Vaca says she plans to take the act to Washington, D.C., to push for a federal law in honor of her son.
"I am going to try to get this poster up on walls just like there is one nationwide to wash your hands. We need a poster in every kitchen to say that food allergies are fatal," Vaca said. "Hopefully it'll be in my son's name too."
She says this will be her lifelong mission as Sergio was her only son, and his legacy will live on.
"I am retired, and I do not have grandchildren, so my social security, my retirement, and my 401k are what I have to go up and work in honor of my son in D.C. That will be his legacy," Vaca added. "He wanted to be the famous Sergio played in movies or singing. That's what he wanted to do but his name will live on."
