#842: The Story Behind EpiPen, The Rise of Food Allergies, and What Doctors Got Wrong

**Tim Ferriss** (0:00)
Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferris Show, my last of 2025 This time around, we have an experimental format, which I do very rarely, but this one features the first episode of a brand new podcast launching next week called Drug Story. Why would I do this? I rarely feature episodes from other shows, but every once in a blue moon, I highlight something because I think it's well worth your time. This one came over the transom to me. It changed how I think about allergies, and I say that as someone who carries an EpiPen and has wondered why on earth have food allergies seem to skyrocket in the last few decades. What a wild drop. I learned a ton. Drug Story is a podcast that tells the story of the disease business one drug at a time. Each episode explores one disease and one drug, and it kicks off with EpiPen and food allergies. A quick teaser. What if I told you that a well-meaning medical recommendation may have caused millions of kids to develop food allergies? Yes, that and more in this episode. So make sure to subscribe to Drug Story on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your fine podcasts. You can also go to drugstory.co and learn more. The host is someone I've known for a long time, Thomas Goetz, G-O-E-T-Z. He has many things, but among others, he is a Senior Impact Fellow at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health. And much before that, Thomas was the executive editor at Wired. That's how we connected, which he led to a dozen National Magazine Awards from 2001 to 2013 His writing has been repeatedly selected for the best American science writing and best technology writing anthologies. He's also written best selling books and much more. One quick PS before you go and jump into this episode, which I think you're really going to enjoy. To help you kick off 2026, check out Henry Shukman, S-H-U-K-M-A-N. He's a past podcast guest, incredible, and one of the few in the world authorized to teach Sanbo Zen. He is a master, and Henry's app, The Way, has changed my life. I've been using it daily, often twice a day, hundreds upon hundreds of sessions. And it's lowered my anxiety more than I thought possible. And that's something that I saw within, I would say, 10 to 14 days. You can get 30 free sessions, no credit card required. Just visit thewayapp.com/tim.
That's the way, W-A-Y, app, A-P-P ,.com, thewayapp.com/tim.
And I highly encourage you to check it out. Man, oh man, it's been a game changer. And now, without further ado, here's Thomas with the wild story of EpiPen and the rise of food allergies.

**Alexander Haju** (2:53)
So the current foods I'm allergic to are milk, egg, wheat, peanuts, tree nuts, oat, mustard, barley, and fish.

**Thomas Goetz** (3:03)
Got it.

**Alexander Haju** (3:04)
I've never actually had an allergic reaction to barley itself specifically, mainly due to the fact that I'm not of legal drinking age.

**Thomas Goetz** (3:12)
Right. I forgot about beer. There's definitely barley and beer. I'd like you to meet Alex.

**Alexander Haju** (3:18)
My name is Alexander Haju. I'm 19 years old. I live in New York City. And I'm in this interview because of the sheer amount of food allergies I have.

**Thomas Goetz** (3:29)
Alex has lived his whole life with food allergies. And that means his life has been a little bit different in some surprising ways. Here's an example.

**Alexander Haju** (3:38)
I've never eaten a single food from any restaurant ever in my life. I always bring my own food. I typically just ask for an empty plate. A lot of places, when I tell them I have allergies, often say like, listen, what are your allergies? Maybe we can try to accommodate for you. I show them the list and the answer always ends up being, I'm sorry, I don't think we can do all of these. Never mind.

**Thomas Goetz** (4:02)
So no restaurants or no restaurant food at least. Alex has a particularly severe set of food allergies. But he's not alone. He's one of many kids born in recent decades who have severe food allergies, allergies that force him to scrutinize every single thing he eats. But even though Alex is super careful and always watchful, sometimes something happens.

**Alexander Haju** (4:28)
This is about two years ago. Previously to this, tuna showed up low in my blood test. It didn't show up on the skin test at all. I had an oral exam for tuna and nothing came up. So the allergist cleared me and said to just take it easy because I still had an allergy to other fish. So I would have like small amounts of tuna increasing them a little bit. Every time I had it, this was, I believe, my eighth or ninth time having tuna. And I had the meal at home before I went to tennis practice. I get to the court and I start playing after about 10 minutes in the warm up. I'm feeling like, man, my wrist is really hurting. I don't think I can play with this. And I also noticed that, like, I was breathing really hard and my face felt like it was burning a little. But I wrote that off as it was my asthma acting up because I was playing tennis. Then I call my dad down from the upper level. And I tell him, hey, dad, my wrist hurts. I don't think I'm going to be able to play.