I don’t think anyone believes that the psychosomatic effects can be controlled by the person. However, as far as I know,psychosomatic effects are not life-threatening.It’s one thing to say peanuts should be banned from a school because the dust can cause a life-threatening reaction.I can understand “peanut free tables” or a particular class having a ban on peanut butter because of the issue with little kids smearing it around.If the smell of peanuts really **does ** cause a life threatening reaction (but according to http://www.allerg.qc.ca/peanutallergy.htm#asthmapeanut,it doesn’t seem to) then I can understand wanting a ban on peanut butter.But a non-life-threatening psychosomatic reaction being the basis for a ban?How is banning peanut butter from a whole school because an allergic kid might get an upset stomach or a headache from the smell different from banning tuna-fish because a kid who doesn’t like it gets an upset stomach from the smell?
You’re wrong. I would have done the same than this mother. That since I met someone (my ex) who is extremely allergic to eggs. A lot of waiters in restaurants (and other people, like shop sellers, etc…) underestimate (like you) the danger. When you say “allergy” they think “two spots on the nose the following day”, never “intensive care”. So, they don’t pay much attention, and you have to make very clear that if they don’t make sure there isn’t any trace of eggs, they can as well call the ambulance at the same time they serve the dish.
So, speaking from experience, if I had a child in a similar situation, I would certainly teach him to clearly state what his condition is and what the consequences could be when he goes eating somewhere, like this mother rightly did.
I suspect it’s related to the widespread use of PB, or something, since here, where it’s quite impossible to even find PB, peanut allergy seems to be more or less unheard of (though people eat peanuts (oil, the nuts themselves, candies, etc…). Do allergy usually appear when people live in an environment where the allergen is very common, or are people allergic from birth?
And some day, she would eat some peanuts, since she think that at worse she’ll be ill, or someone (the parents of a friend, for instance) will give her something with peanuts because they didn’t realy pay attention to the content, or just because the child will forget to warn them, and you’ll have to choose a lovely white coffin. Once again, you obviously don’t realize what is a real severe allergy. That exactly because a lot of people are just like you (or like me some years back) that it is necesseray to always warn people that it’s a life threatening condition.
SaxFace wrote:
I hear ya. I wish psychosomatic reactions only happened up at the intellectual level. They seem to happen waaaaaay down at the level of basic instincts, which are damn hard to do something about.
I would be curious if you’ve ever tried anything like the following experiment:
[li]Put on a nose-clamp so that you can’t smell anything.[/li][li]Walk into a room where you know there is pistachio fluff that you’d be able to smell if you weren’t wearing the nose clamp. See if you still get a migrain. If not, problem solved. Sort of.[/li][li]If you do still get a migrain, have somebody prepare 3 rooms. One of the rooms has pistachio fluff in it, the other 2 are pistachio-fluff-free. While wearing the nose clamp, see if you can tell which room has the pistachio fluff in it by your reaction. Take as much time between rooms as you need to recover.[/li]
Admittedly, since a positive reaction comes in the form of an uncrontrollable migrain for you, this isn’t the kind of experiment you’d be inclined to perform on a whim.
Hmm, no one has come up with a cite for any kids dying from smelling a PBJ. Wonder why?
Let’s consider this. According to the Houston Chronicle link in the OP,
So anaphylactic shock kills 125 people per year. It doesn’t even say that all 125 cases are caused by peanuts, but let’s say that’s what they meant.
125 people out of 281,421,906 (US Census, April 1, 2000) is, get this, .0000444% of the population.
The population of Houston was 1,953,631, so 1,953,631 X .0000444% equals .8674 people that may have died from this horror. Less than 1 person.
The fact that a School Board spent even a second of time thinking about this, let alone creating “policies”, posting signs, or telling parents what to feed their kids IS COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS!!!
Methinks some people need to lie down, and sniff the smelling salts.
Too bad that person wasn’t you. :rolleyes:
On the contrary, Clair, I’ve made it abundantly clear that I’m aware that peanuts can cause allergic reactions, which may on occasion be quite serious. I suggest you reread the quote you posted, and pay attention to the words “at this age”. The parents of this child should take on the responsibility of monitoring her eating habits when they are with her, and teach her with due forcefulness not to accept food from strangers. They should not, in my view, be encouraging her to visualize her own death at this age and deliver speeches about her possible impending death to strangers.
It’s up to all of us to decide what are reasonable societal precautions to take to deal with allergies. In the case of children with peanut allergies, it’s up to parents to make an informed assessment with the aid of their physician as to what degree of risk their child faces, and to deal with that risk in a way that not only protects the child from ingesting an allergen, but avoids psychologically damaging the child through overprotective overkill.
milroyj wrote:
Ah, but don’t forget, that’s per year. Over the course of the average human lifetime (say 72 years), we would expect, on average, that 62-and-a-half Houston residents would die from anaphylactic shock.
And just think – over the next hundred thousand years, that’s 86,740 residents of Houston that will die from this horror! Why, in two-and-a-quarter million years, the entire population of Houston will have died!! We can’t let this tragedy occur!
Methinks that some school boards did just that, by weighing the cost of dealing with a lawsuit if they DIDN’T create the policies and a kid died, versus having the policies in place, and being ‘safe’ in court.
Just another example of our wonderful American way of life :rolleyes:
I have a question for the peanut allergy sufferers on the board. Since it seems that most (or all) of you agree that reactions from the smell of peanuts are likely psychosomatic, have any of you tried (or considered) some type of desensitivity therapy? Or if the smell of peanuts causes something like a panic attack do any of you take any anti-anxiety meds when you may be exposed to the smell (e.g. on an airplane)? Perhaps doing either of these things might improve your quality of life a bit.
I agree that having an allergy like this must suck big-time. You have my best wishes.
The question I had when I read the NYT Magazine article, which was never answered, nor has it been answered here:
The majority of the horror stories and proposed legislation/bans revolved around people who went to restaurants, or ate prepared foods, which contained peanuts (or whatever they were allergic to) but either didn’t indicate so (on the ingredient label), or had been “contaminated” by the allergen due to proximity, etc. (like the example given above of the chocolate chip cookies cooked on the same sheet as the peanut butter cookies). As a result, the enraged parents or allergy sufferers pressed for legislation mandating more detailed ingredient labels, or more stringent preparation procedures which would eliminate any form of contamination.
Why on earth would anyone with a severe food allergy eat prepared food of any kind? Make your food from basic ingredients, chosen yourself, in your allergen-free kitchen. Has our society reached the point that access to prepared food is now a fundamental right?
And if we’re going to ban peanuts for fear of people with peanut allergies, then for God’s sake, what are we going to do about those people that have soybean oil allergies?! (I’ve met someone who had this allergy.) My God! Do you have any idea how many things are made with Wesson oil or Crisco, or variants thereof? Two-thirds of the items on grocery store shelves would have to come down!
KellyM
[Moderator Hat ON]
KellyM, I do not think it is appropriate in this forum to express the wish that one of your fellow posters would have died.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
But … but … but, then what about this thread?
Actually, I did understood what you meant. Rven if you taught you child not to accept food from strangers, are you sure he won’t accept something from the mother of one his friend, for instance, especially if he can’t tell her what the real risks are? Or even from another schoolmate?
I am wondering what you would say/have said to your child to teach him not to put his finger in an electric plug, not to swallow funny-colored pills, cross the street running or whatever else life-threatening situation? Also, take into consideration that there will be adults that won’t think it’s dangerous or even will tell him to eat the stuff (Imagine the situation where most other adults wouldn’t prevent your child from putting his fingers in the plug, and even could actively encourage him to do so).
It would be absolutely impossible. I myself discovered how many things contain eggs. And since whatever could be the ingredient, there will always been someone who is allergic to it, all prepared food would have to be banned.
But certainly, all the ingredients must be listed,even when there are only traces of them. It’s enough to insure the security of allergic people.
Actually, it has reached the point where many disabled people think they have a right to have people do whatever it takes to enable them to do anything normal folks can do. The cost of printing “May contain stray peanut molecules” on food packaging would probably be negligible, but requiring facilities where food is prepared to treat peanuts like plutonium sounds a bit excessive to me.
We must find a cure before this gets out of hand.
As it has been said by another poster, and as I myself witnessed, severely allergic people do avoid to eat in restaurants, and tend to stick to products they are familiar with when buying prepared foods.
Read the NYT mag. article; the substance of the article was to the contrary. Parents asking that food companies, for example, not process foods in equipment that has previously processed peanuts, not ship foods in trucks that also contain peanuts.
Basically, a huge tax on all of us, to allow the allergic the right to eat prepared food.