Seafood Persuasive Essay

Are you allergic to seafood? Anyone who has had a procedure done to them that needed iodinated contrast media has been asked this. Researching for an article has lead me to exam preparation guidelines and radiology manuals that say to ask whether the patient is allergic to seafood along with other allergies and even to go as far as asking if they are allergic to iodine specifically. The reasoning for this is that seafood is high in iodine.
The fact of the matter is that iodine is an essential trace element for life, with its main role being in the thyroid’s production of certain hormones, so it is impossible to be allergic to iodine. Iodine deficiency leads to hypothyroidism, whose symptoms include goiter, and mental slowing, being the leading cause of preventable mental retardation. This was a major enough problem that it lead to the idea of adding iodine to salt, the thought being that salt was …show more content…
Thus, separating seafood allergies from other allergies when questioning the patient for a study with iodinated contrast media is not only pointless but a detriment to the eradication of the perpetuating myth of seafood allergies being the cause of adverse reactions to iodinated contrast media.
The best thing to ask the patient is whether they have any allergies at all. If they say they are allergic to iodine then ask if they have had an atopic reaction to previous use of contrast media in the hope that educating them that they do not have an “allergy” to iodine, and that an allergy to shellfish does not change the risk of reaction to intravenous contrast any more than any other allergy, the removal of the stigma of the relationship between seafood allergies and iodine from the zeitgeist of the medical community and general population can