Teen Died From Asthma Attack, Not From Peanut Butter Kiss, Coroner Says

By LES PERREAUX

MONTREAL (CP) – The infamous peanut butter kiss originally thought to have killed a Quebec girl had nothing to do with her death, a coroner revealed Thursday.

Christina Desforges died from an asthma attack after “physical exertion” with her boyfriend, not from an allergic reaction to a peanut butter-laced kiss, said coroner Michel Miron.

The 15-year-old girl stopped breathing in the early morning hours of Nov. 20, 2005, after kissing her boyfriend. He had eaten two pieces of toast with peanut butter about nine hours earlier.

The initial suspicion that lingering peanut allergens triggered an allergic reaction was wrong, Miron said. Instead, he blamed a sudden, severe asthma attack following physical activity with her boyfriend.

“Nine hours passed between the time when the young man ate his two toasts and 3 a.m. when he kissed Christina,” Miron said in announcing his findings.

“A recent study shows at the end of an hour, there is no allergen left in the saliva. It’s not very probable that peanut butter is implicated. Nine hours later, I don’t believe it and studies show the same thing.”

The girl had spent hours at a party with smokers at a home in Saguenay, Que., when her breathing problems began. She also had smoked pot in the previous hours, Miron added, another factor that can cause problems for asthma sufferers.

Around 3 a.m., Desforges told her boyfriend she was having trouble breathing. She went in the basement to get her inhaler and had trouble getting down the stairs, waking a second teenage boy with her wheezing and stumbling.

“They helped Christina go up the stairs and they decided to go outside,” Miron said in Saguenay, about 250 kilometres north of Quebec City.

“She collapsed and stopped breathing. The 911 recording is not funny to hear. You can imagine, two young boys 15 years old dealing with a young girl in front of them, not breathing.”

The boys tried to resuscitate Desforges and she was taken to hospital, but the coroner estimates her brain was deprived of oxygen for 25 to 30 minutes. She was taken off life support nine days later.

Asthma kills about 500 Canadians every year, according to the Asthma Society of Canada.

Society head Frank Viti says many asthma sufferers do not take their symptoms seriously enough.

“It’s infuriating because it’s completely preventable,” Viti said in an interview.

“Statistically, when it’s been analyzed, 90 per cent of deaths are preventable. The fundamental problem is patients have a perception and society has a perception that asthma symptoms should be tolerated.”

Viti said Quebec has among the more advanced systems of treating asthma, while those in the Atlantic provinces lag far behind the others.

Along with her allergies to nuts and peas, Desforges suffered asthma from a young age, carrying an inhaler to deal with respiratory problems that popped up occasionally.

Desforges had sought treatment for her asthma at least two times in the previous six months.

In August 2005, she went to a local emergency room to deal with a severe asthma attack after spending the day in a house with two cats, a dog and smokers, “all massive asthma triggers,” according to Viti.

Miron noted that Desforges had learned to live the disease from a young age.

“Asthma is a disease that people tend to trivialize, to think it’s benign,” Miron said.

“Even people who suffer from it can trivialize it.”

About three million Canadians suffer from the disease, a chronic inflammation of the airways that may be triggered by an over-sensitive immune system.