This is one of the most cold-hearted, inhumane posts ever. I assume you’d feel exactly the same way if it was your five-year old child who died? It’s just evolution in action…
:mad:
Did you try googling “airborne peanut”? I just did and got 11,400 hits for sites dicussing why it is and isn’t a valid trigger of the allergy.
Personally, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ban peanut products. One’s right to eat a food shouldn’t supercede another’s right to not have their life put in danger.
Ok let’s see.
We have a kid who is deathly allergic to all things peanut. If he comes in contact with it, he dies.
We have a school full of kids who have a “right” to eat peanut butter sandwiches.
We have a school system scared to death of getting sued if the kid with the allergy drops dead.
Cry me a river for the other kids. Schools accomodate other kids with special needs all the time, why should this be any different? Should this child be kicked out of the school because of his allergy?
I think it’s not terribly appropriate that small, little kids be expected to always be “careful” and “remember” to not expose this kid to peanuts, but how long should this ultra-carefulness continue?
How long should this kid expect to have everyone else live peanut-free lives when he’s around? How long? How old does he have to be until he will be expected to protect himself, and be careful on his own behalf? Will this be the expectation when he’s in high school? College? The workplace?
No question, elfkin477. If there is indeed a risk of airborn peanut particles causing an anaphylactic reaction, I have no objection to the banning of peanuts in public places.
However, it seems that there is little or no scientific evidence supporting the claims of “reactions” to peanut fumes. I obviously didn’t check all 11,400 hits but the few that supported this claim appearing on the first page were all anectdotal evidence alone.
I was hoping there was someone here smarter than I that could point me to a scientific study that would support the position that airborn particles pose a risk to those sensitive to peanut allergies.
Until then, I believe the school system (and airlines) are simply suffering from severe knee-jerk reactions to potential lawsuits. YMMV.
I forgot to add that I believe it’s the child and parent’s responsibility to be sure their child doesn’t ingest peanuts.
I also agree that age makes a huge difference in this case. A 5-year will not likely understand the consequenes of his actions. A 13-year-old, however, should. Most states have laws that dictate when a child can be held liable for their actions so it’s not an impossible question to answer.
It is not as simple as banning peanut butter sandwiches, though. You would have to ban a lot of candy, everything cooked in peanut oil, and other products truly too numerous to mention. Should extraordinary accomodations that would mean extreme hardship to all the other families that have children in that school be the norm, or should the very rare student that has this allergy be expected to realize that not all handicaps can be 100% accomodated?
Czarcasm: I might agree, if the “handicap” weren’t fatal. That’s the one fact that makes me a little unsure about how far to take this. I mean, sure, it’s pretty inconvenient, and silly at first glance, but then I weigh that against, if nothing else, the incredible trauma of elementary schoolers watching a classmate die in front of them. This would be an easier debate if it weren’t for that whole dying thing.
I do agree, though, that there should be some sort of limit - one CAN take it too far. But damn if I know what it is…
The problem is that every child has the right to a free and appropriate education, but not every child has the right to eat a PB&J. Those who speak of the schools “accommodating” these children have the right of it; and it’s not just something the public schools have decided to do, it’s something that by law they are required to do. Severe allergies may constitute a disability, and if they are a disability, then public schools must accommodate children having them if reasonably possible, just as they must accommodate other forms of disability .
Age is a factor as well. It may be appropriate to declare the entire classroom a “peanut-free” zone when you’re dealing with four-year-olds who don’t understand that a neighbor’s Reese’s peanut butter cup can kill, but the same draconian measure might be inappropriate in, say, a high school.
IMO, the problem here was that the school did not appropriately communicate with the parents regarding the nature of the problem and the steps to be taken before instituting such intrusive measures as searching kids’ bags and confiscating their lunches.
I guess for kindergarteners, and given the severity of the allergy, I’d be okay with making the classroom (and lunchroom for these kids) a peanut-free zone. It’s hard to stand on your right to feed your kids whatever the heck you please, when doing so puts someone else’s kid at risk of dropping dead.
Anyhoo, there’s a short overview of this issue here, if anyone’s interested.
I’m with Jodi. The fault lies with the school not communicating effectively with the parents of the other students. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for peanut butter to be banned from a classroom if it is going to endanger another child. I do think it is entirely unreasonable that a child should be banned from school when small accommodations will make a huge difference.
My kid’s gluten intolerant and casein intolerant. I would think it would be entirely unreasonable for me to require a school to ban gluten from his classroom but if my kid eats gluten, he will just be very unpleasant to be around for a few days. Death’s a touch more permanent than that.
I believe that people getting sick from “peanut fumes” is all psycho-somatic. I would like to see some scientic proof supporting the claim that you get an allergic reaction from simply inhaling it.
So, IMO, it’s totally and utterly outrageous to ban peanutbutter in this case. Furthermore, it’s borderline crazy to ban it from a workplace populated by adults.
Sorry if you think I’m being too cold about this, but it’s just my 2 cents.
If peanuts caused an “airborne” reaction, why do airlines still hand out peanuts in airplanes? Surely this would be a headline nationwide, seeing as so many people open bags of peanuts and consume them in one small, contained area. Wouldn’t somebody with “airborne peanut fume allergies” have sued them by now? Or keeled over, mid-flight?
Seriously. This sounds intensely goofy; I’d like to see a cite with some real data behind it.
And what about the kids whose lunches were stolen by zealous school officials? What did they get for lunch? Did their parents get recompensed for the lunch their child wasn’t allowed to eat?
If you’re going to take such a drastic step as banning peanut products from classrooms, I think this is pretty much the worst way to go about it. Bad form all around.
Perhaps they should invent a Peanut Wand you can wave over the kids, to put a stop to any contriband PB sandwiches. That way by the time they get to highschool, they’ll be well-prepared for the metal detectors.
[sub]Maybe even a Peanut-Sniffing Dog…wait, I call band name![/sub]
They don’t. At least not on any flight I’ve been on, domestic or international, in the past five years (I did not often fly before then). Every airline I’ve had experience with has switched to pretzels.
I doubt that people were dropping like flies when peanuts were normally given out on flights.
I’ll repeat–I think that for young, young kids, such measures are probably needed. But when they get older–man, they’ve gotta learn that they need to be taking care of themselves if they’ve got an allergy that bad. I don’t know what the cut-off age might be, but I’m thinking age 10 or so should be old enough to comprehend that peanuts=death.
Sooner or later, they’ll have to be left to their own devices, and be responsible for their own safety from the dreaded peanut. The rest of the world will not cater to them for the rest of their lives.
Recent flights I’ve been on still have peanuts, but then Pretzels aren’t commonly eaten in Britain.
I was on a flight a month or two ago and they announced as we boarded the plane that there was a child with a peaut allergy on the plane and as a result they were not serving peanuts.
When I was little (like grade 1/2) one of my good friends had numerous severe allergies to various common foods (nuts among them). I recall that at that age (6/7) she knew that you do not trade any food with any kids or eat anything offered at the school (ie snacks, cupcakes brought in for birthdays whatever) without express permission from her mother. She was only allowed to eat from her own lunch kit.
We never had any specific food bans for my class despite this allergy, she never actually had an attack around me but I had heard from her as well as her mother about them and the whole class was warned not to offer to trade food with her at the start of the year. She got along just fine. Though I can perfectly understand banning them, but it’s hard to catch everything with a possibility of peanuts. The most they can really do is ban peanut butter and stuff like Reeses Cups…
I do remember in grade 9 peanut butter being banned in the whole school… you’d think by 14 you’d know to check your ingredients and not eat peanut butter sandwiches!!
Yes, its callous and inhumane but its probably also the most rational way of looking at the situation. Asking about your reaction if it were your child is intellectualy dishonest, humans are not built to be rational creatures. What about all those children in Africa? How can you not fly over there and feed them all, after all, I assume you would be just as apathetic if they were your children.
In the end, the cold, hard truth is that if you remove selection pressures against detrimental genetic factors, then those factors are only going to increase which is a detriment to society at large.
These kids SHOULD have been killed off at an early age.
Southwest still hands them out almost every flight. In the mornings, they just hand out cookies.
Fabulous then, Shalmanese I’ll expect a call by my place some time soon to knock my kids off seeing as how they are allergic to certain food stuffs and that fails the genetic test? I mean god forbid they’re left to keep on living what with the risk to society at large and all?
Our local school already insists on peanut-free packed lunches; not because of the risk of allergy from proximity, but because (apparently) some children exchange sandwiches with each other - this isn’t a case of the school being overly strict, it is a case of them wishing to minimise the prospect of facing charges of negligence or some such.