Italy: Woman dies after eating ‘vegan’ tiramisu, dairy allergy blamed

A manslaughter investigation has been launched after a 20-year-old woman was rushed to hospital and died after eating tiramisu at an Italian restaurant.

Anna Bellisario was dining with her boyfriend at a fast food restaurant in Milan on January 26 when she fell ill.

Bellisario, who had a severe dairy allergy since birth, had ordered a vegan dessert from the Flower Burger outlet.

She sought reassurance it was truly vegan before she ate it, knowing how serious her condition was, but by the second spoonful she knew something was badly wrong, the Corriere Della Sera newspaper reported.

She ran to the toilet to try and make herself sick and took the asthma medicine and cortisone she always carried, but went into anaphylactic shock and collapsed.

Bellisario fell into a coma and died 10 days later on February 5 at San Raffaele hospital.

Anna Bellisario.

Now the two women who ran the pastry shop that supplied the desserts are being investigated for manslaughter.

Investigations have reportedly discovered that an invoice for vegan desserts was confused for one made using milk.

Prosecutors Tiziana Siciliano and Luca Gaglio argue that the death could have been prevented by ensuring a separation of ingredients in the factory.

Wiretaps were also used, leading to the conclusion that the failure was partly due to “unscrupulousness” on the part of the shop.

Bellisario also had an egg allergy and traces of egg were found in the mayonnaise served to her in the supposedly vegan sandwich she also ate at the restaurant that day.

The women’s company was a supplier to 63 restaurants at the time and the tiramisu product was withdrawn from sale following Bellisario’s death.

British man George Brown was rushed to hospital and nearly died when a McDonald’s employee gave him the wrong drink by mistake in 2019.

The 22-year-old had ordered his black coffee through the self-service kiosk in a bid to minimise the risk of human error.

Moments later, he took a sip of the drink handed to him and his tongue immediately swelled up.

“I took one sip of the drink and spat it out,” Brown said.

“My tongue started swelling immediately. I was wheezing, dizzy and short of breath.”

“The risk with an allergic reaction is that they are unpredictable. You can’t tell if they’re going to get worse.

“A reaction like this can narrow your airways to the point where you can’t breathe — respiratory arrest — and then the heart stops — cardiac arrest — which means death.

“That’s the severe level it could have gone to. I could have died.”