F Estelle R Simons is professor at the department of paediatrics and child health and the department of immunology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada R3A 1R9 Aziz Sheikh is professor of primary care research and development at the Allergy and Respiratory Research Group, Centre for Population Health Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

Competing interests: We have read and understood the BMJ Group policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: FERS serves on the Food Allergy Research and Education Medical Advisory Board, and on ALK, Mylan, and Sanofi medical advisory boards for anaphylaxis; she also served on the NIH/NIAID food allergy expert panel; she is a contributing editor to The Medical Letter and the editor of the anaphylaxis section in UpToDate; she chairs the World Allergy Organization special committee on anaphylaxis; she is a past president of the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology, and a past president of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. AS has undertaken advisory work for ALK-Abello, Lincoln Medical, Meda, and Thermo Fisher Scientific; he was a member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health’s care pathway for children at risk of anaphylaxis, a member of the UK Resuscitation Council’s anaphylaxis guidelines committee, the World Allergy Organization’s special committee on anaphylaxis, the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology’s steering committee of the food allergy and anaphylaxis guidelines, and the scientific committee of the Anaphylaxis Campaign; he is also the Royal College of General Practitioners’ clinical champion for allergy.