A program in the Medical Intensive Care Unit has successfully removed penicillin allergy labels from more than 45 inpatients at high risk to receive antibiotics, but whose penicillin allergies were low risk.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and colleagues have identified a gene that increases the risk for a severe and potentially life-threatening reaction to the commonly prescribed antibiotic vancomycin.

Thirty years ago when she was 16, Katie Niemeyer was prescribed carbamazepine for depression. Three weeks later she was in a St. Louis, Missouri, burn unit with second and third degree burns all over her body. “My parents were told the chances of me surviving were slim,” she said.

Alpha-gal allergy has commonly been referred to as “the red meat” allergy, but doctors at the Vanderbilt Asthma, Sinus and Allergy Program (ASAP) helped uncover that not only red meat, but some medications, can contain alpha-gal.

Last year Paul and Wanpen Anderson of Champaign, Illinois, were preparing to celebrate the Christmas holidays with their two children when their 22-year-old daughter, Angela, developed a rare adverse drug reaction called SJS/TEN.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has received a five-year, $12.8 million grant from the federal government to develop better ways to predict how patients will respond to the drugs they’re given.