Moving this to Great Debates.
I think it’s reasonable, but I’m biased in that I have a shellfish allergy. Not as serious as the nut allergies described, I just get severe localised oedema which is only a problem if it has contacted my face. I’ve lost count of the number of times my arms have swelled up like balloons just from resting them on a table, particularly public eateries. Even though mine isn’t life threatening (though would be if I ate it, swollen mucous membranes aren’t good), the degree of swelling still requires hospital treatment.
So it’s not just what other kids eat, you’d then have to watch every surface they touch after eating their peanuts and thoroughly clean it and hope that’s adequate.
I don’t have a life threatening allergy but everyone who knows me knows never to bring shellfish into my house. Most don’t have it at their house if I’m visiting because it presents problems with even sitting at the table with them. However, in public I do just have to deal with it. But in a school situation it’s probably easier to ban peanut products than to make sure each child’s hands are thoroughly washed and tables, chairs, any other surface the children may have touched are cleaned properly. Even then there’s no gaurantee, I have had reactions from tables that were cleaned since the last patron.
I say it is excessive and unreasonable due to the lack of objective evidence or professional opinion that this particular kid has allergies of this severity.
The only source of info cited in the story is the kid’s mom. IMO, the unsupported statement of a parent should generally be insufficient to direct schoolwide policy.
The only doctor cited, an immunologist, says it would be very unlikely for a kid to have a reaction of this severity.
And now the school has hired a special nurse to monitor this situation?
Finally - and admittedly anecdotally - we have neighbors who - IMO - vehemently overreact with respect to their impression of their kid’s susceptibility to allergens. IMO, they are doing their kid a disservice by instilling such a fragile self image. I have encountered several other allergic folk who - IMO - are uninformed about their condition, over react to perceived threats, fail to personally pursue appropriate treatment, and eagerly impose costs upon others.
FWIW, I have had severe allergies for the past 40 years, and all 3 of my kids have various allergies.
Although sympathetic to the problem, I see this as a dangerous precedent.
A line has to be drawn somewhere. Perhaps children with such severe allergies do not belong in the regular public schools. Perhaps such children need home schooling, or a center for the “nut allergic”? After all, do we accomodate “bubble” children in regular schools? Do we ensure that all children are sterile clean before the bubble child enters a school?
What if one of the “normal” children eats a candy bar (with peanuts) on his way to school and comes in contact with this special child? There’s no way to police this.
My aunt has a sever peanut allergy. I have been with her in the zoo where someone who had been eating peanuts leaned close to her trying to see the Pandas; she started to go into shock and had to use her epi-pen. At Christmas two years ago we all ended up at the hospital because one of the kids ate a cookie from the school exchange and 3 hours later kissed my aunt, she went into shock. She has been moved up to first class on more than one airplane because they were serving peanuts.
She lived through public schools when there were no accommodations. She was also sick for more a quarter of the school days. (Luckily my Grandmother was a teacher so she kept her up with the schoolwork).
Her allergy has seemed to increase in severity was she gets older. Since menopause some of the things that would only make her break out or feel faint now send her into shock.
From observing her, and some of the other children in the extended family, it seems that the allergy is affecting more people and affecting children younger with the most sever form. When my aunt was a child she could be in the same room with one person who had eaten peanuts without breaking out in hives, as long as she didn’t get close enough to talk to that person. Now, there are several kids who can’t be in the same room with only one other person who have eaten peanuts without breaking out in hives. If there are two or more the child runs the risk of going into shock. If this is the case, that the allergy in the regular populations is both coming younger and in more severity, then I agree that the school needs to make the accommodation to peanut free zone until this kid is at least in 4th grade. By then, age 10 or 11, he should be able to handle not being near people who have peanuts, and have the knowledge on how to explain that he can’t be near them. He should also know what he can and can’t eat, and the knowledge on how to explain that he can’t eat certain foods.
It is reasonable to have special meals available to those who have allergies, whether it is to peanuts or whatever else. It is unreasonable to make everyone accomodate this. Peanuts aren’t the only things people are allergic to; what happens when you get children with conflicting allergies? Does it eventually become impossible to serve anything because everyone is allergic to something?
I’m just waiting for the kid to move into the school district whose diet REQUIRES peanuts!
It is very sad that people suffer from allergies. The fact of the matter is, that as other posters have pointed out, we have to learn to live with them. THis means that they have to find coping methods for dealing with food. perhaps, it means eating alone. Sad but possibly necessary. In life there are many threats, we have to learn to live with them and try to see threat of harm in a rational manner, not on an emotional level. For example, when I was very young, I was taught that I had to follow certain rules in order to cross a road safely.
Non-compliance with those rules would mean injury or death, probably more certainly than any food allergy incident…
We do not ban cars, we teach kids how to cross roads, from a very early age. By the time I was able to go to school, I was able to cross roads. Surely an eight year old child is self aware enough to deal with their eating habits, if they are similarly life threatening.
Whilst comments up thread about evolution in action may seem callous, protecting a child in the manner of the cited school and parents is doing the child no favours, the child is not ‘learning to cross the road’ and may as soon as it is faced with having to deal with the issues alone, die anyway. In addition to the over protection, we also then have to deal with the attitude of the other kids as they realise that their freedoms are being infrnged by this over zealous attitude. How will they treat the afflicted kid? By being inclusive and friendly? Or more likely by excluding?
In a word, yes.
If Junior is so delicate that even a whiff of peanut butter is fatal, it is the parent’s responsibility to protect him. It is NOT the job of every other family to carefully screen their childs lunch for peanut products.
So where does one draw the line? I am intolerant to onions, garlic, peppers, curry, and a number of other spices like curry. I can not eat even a bite of anything cooked with onions any more. While it has not killed me, it does cause my stomach acids to flair up and last year I had uclers and a constricted esphogus to where I could not eat.
Now I have to be careful of what I eat. I ask at resturants not to include onions. However even if they don’t put onions on my food sometimes I can still taste it and get sick* if they cooked onions on the same grill. Nor can I walk past some places that cook certain things, curry is the worst. Same goes with people who bring in such food into the work place, which happily for me is rare.
Should I make it so that people don’t bring curry into work? Why should I suffer? Personally I think that there should be no ban and the kids should understand that they should not share their food. While I don’t remember 100% I think there was one kid in my school who was allergic to nuts and that’s what we did. If a child has such a bad reaction to nuts that even one particle of air can kill them then they do need to have some sort of special school or at least a place for them to eat without the hazard.
*For the most part when I eat onions or whatever I only get an upset stomach. Sometimes though I get really bad gas coming from both ends. No medication has helped that I have found, even stuff given to me by doctors. Sometimes though it is very painful, enough to double me over. It has also gotten worse over the last couple of years.
The problem is not merely that some children are allergic to peanuts, but that their allergies are (supposedly, at least) so severe that contact with even tiny traces of peanut could make them very ill or even kill them. The vast majority of food allergies are nowhere near so severe, so there is no reason to take such precautions to protect most allergy-sufferers.
If I were to eat strawberries I’d suffer an unpleasant physical reaction, but it wouldn’t kill me, I can safely eat food that has touched strawberries, and I suffer no ill effects when people around me eat strawberries. Were I to demand that strawberries be banned from my school/workplace then that would be unreasonable. But not everyone is as fortunate as I am.
I do feel sorry for this child, but banning peanuts from an entire school strikes me as unreasonable. It seems like there must be some way of accomadating him without inconvieniencing the rest of the children.
The nurse who’s assigned to him could watch him to ensure that he eats only his own lunch, and, if need be, take him to another room in the school to eat to lessen the possibility of contact.
Perhaps the child could wear a surgical-style mask after lunch to eliminate the possibility of coming into contact with airborn particles. His table could be cleaned before he sits, and he could be cautioned not to touch his peers.
As other posters have said, it’s his allergy, and he’s going to have to learn to deal with it in the real world. It’s unreasonable to expect the world to create a peanut-free zone around him for the rest of his life.
In reading this, I started to wonder about the child’s peers. How are they reacting to this issue? Are they resentful that they must make so many concessions? Do they tease him mercilessly on the playground? These elaborate measures must make him stick out like a sore thumb, and, as we all know, children can be astonishingly cruel. Do they treat him like a freak?
Here’s my solution: let the kid eat in a separate room, and have three or four kids eat with him or her each day. The group can be rotated. That way, the kid doesn’t get dead and also gets to maintain a social life, which I think a concern the parents might have.
I can’t see how this or anything more reasonable would be adequate if the kid has a life-threatening allergy which can be triggered by tiny traces. One parent sends leftovers which were cooked in/with peanut oil by a restaurant or bought at a grocery store, and the allergic kid is at risk when they play after lunch. Should we expect that 60-odd sets of parents will all interrogate waiters and check every label without an error or fifty in the year? The people checking lunches for peanuts would have to throw out everything not in a labeled box. If you don’t have an allergy to peanuts, do you know for sure your cousin’s cookies don’t have a dash of peanut butter? Heck, I made hummus with peanut butter while I was nailing down what had caused some alergic reactions (turned out not to be sesame, so I’m back to tahini).
We also don’t know from this article how allergic the kid really is. This might be an overreaction that will just result in a bunch of hungry kids whose lunches have been taken away, or it might be a disaster waiting to happen. We don’t know if the school has medical confirmation of the severity, or if it’s just from the parent (who may be over or under reacting) A lot of people I’ve spoken with seem to think all food allergies are die-if-you-eat-a-trace severe, and if you can get away with a trace, it means you can eat a whole dish. I get a swolen mouth if I try to eat a couple things, but more commonly I just get asthma and a rash if I eat a trace of one of them. None of my reactions needs an immediate ER trip (besides the first time I had them as a kid), but they’d be really freaky to a non-allergic parent seeing them in their kid.
Like Dinsdale, I’m also wondering what would happen if a kid who can only eat (due to conflicting allergies, collitis, whatever) something the allergic kid can’t moved to this school.
I was thinking the same thing. Are the other kids being educated as to the nature of his allergy and about allergies in general?
And the school had to fire an instructional assistant to hire a nurse to monitor the student? That sounds like “inconveniencing the children” to me, if they’ve lost help in the classroom due to a peanut allergy.
I’m all for the enforced handwashing at the beginning of the day, though. Good habit to get into.
See, this is something no one seems to have the balls to discuss (other than RealTronic: allergies have a considerable psychological component to them. I know that my own serious reactions (I’m allergic to potatoes) have all happened at stressful times - holidays, deal closings, things like that. And if I believe that I’m not going to be able to deal with the consequences of the reaction (I’ve forgotten my meds, etc.) , my reaction is worse - rather like my insomnia gets worse if I know I have to be up early. Although it’s certainly important that children learn to treat their asthma and allergies seriously, because they can be life-threatening, it’s equally important for them to understand that they can control their condition. That’s getting lost in what looks to me like hysteria bordering on Munchausen-by-proxy.
In my mother’s school, they do the separate lunchroom thing (peanut free rooms). I can understand making some form of effort to minimize the chances a child who is severely allergic to peanuts will come into contact with the allergen and die. It’s not just the eating of the stuff that exposes a child to the allergen - and that’s what people fail to understand. It goes beyond the lunchroom. It’s also about what hands touch, and what hands then go into mouthes or eyes…
Thing is is - when you’re 5 years old, even if your mom told you not to trade foods, there’s nothing preventing your friend, who just ate a peanut butter sandwich, from smearing a bit of peanut butter on a table, and then you putting your hand on it, then putting your hand in your mouth.
This happened in a nursery school in my hometown.
On a different note: allergies and intolerences are two different things. Anaphylaxis is a thousand-fold times worse than an upset stomach and explosive diarrhea. There’s no need to be hysterical about it, but I can understand parents being VERY worried about their child.
I just don’t understand you people that keep saying that the child will have to learn to take care of their allergies at some point. Didn’t you read what another poster said on the first page? Now we ban foods in the workplace so that someone doesn’t have a reaction. Hell, might as well tell those peanut farmers to pack it in. Won’t be long before we just outlaw it altogether. :rolleyes:
When I was a day camp counselor, we had one girl with severe peanut allergies and we used this method. Some days, she and her friends got to eat in the other room, other days, all the kids with peanut products ate in the separate room (We had a few picky 5-year olds who according to their mothers ate nothing but PB&J)
Another thing that I haven’t seen mentioned yet is that these peanut bans might tend to give families a false sense of security. Many have mentioned that because of this child’s age, that he might not be mature enough to keep from ingesting or coming in contact with peanuts. But is it really smart to rely on everyone else to protect this child? I’m thinking that if this were my child, and it truly were a matter of life and death, I wouldn’t want to trust my child’s life to the school administration’s ability to enforce a total peanut ban, day in and day out, for the entire school year, and never have anything with peanuts in it ever get into the school. I would think that, even if it were possible, the kind of vigilance required would create an atmosphere more like a military base than a school. To truly ensure that no peanuts get in, you would have to search every child, read all the ingredients on every packaged food, and phone the parents at home for every cookie or piece of cake, etc. to make sure they didn’t use any peanuts or peanut oil in it. If peanuts really are such a deadly poison to the child that any contact with even miniscule amounts would kill him, should his parents really be trusting everyone else to protect their child? It’s not really making sense to me.