Just for a little added info:
I have here in my hands before me a large container of Pearsons[sup]TM[/sup] mint patties, which I bought at Costco. They contain no peanut ingredients. However, there is a blurb on the label, right below the ingredients list, that reads as follows (quoting VERBATIM):
ALLERGY INFORMATION:
MANUFACTURED IN A FACILITY THAT
PROCESSES PEANUTS.
Just thought I’d share.
Going back to my earlier question about epi-pens:
I would like to hear from the peanut-allergic people in this thread about this. I am highly allergic to insect stings (not life-threateningly so, but a bee sting will put me out of commission for a day and the limb I get stung on will be basically a club for the better part of a week). If epi-pens offer relief to peanut a-shock (as Jackmanni claims they do), why is this not a reasonable solution?
Asking the food industry to become peanut-sterile seems about as reasonable as my asking the local Parks Commissioner to enclose all playgrounds, baseball diamonds, football fields, etc. in mosquito netting so I can go out & play in them without fear of a bee sting.
Why not carry an epi-pen and just be ready for a peanut allergy attack? Does the shock set in so quickly that you wouldn’t be able to administer the shot?
I do carry an epi-pen almost every where I go. It still isn’t good enough. It is possible that you might not get the shot in time, or you might be confused and not realize what is going on, or if you are having a really bad reaction one epi-pen might not be enough. Also, you still have to go to the hospital even if the epi-pen stops the reaction. Plus, the epi-pen is a last resort. Suggesting that a peanut allergy sufferer should be comfortable with the idea of resorting to an epi-pen is like suggesting that a person who smokes should be comfortable resorting to chemotherapy if they get lung cancer. It’s not something you want to do.
Horhay is right.
Devices for self-injection of epinephrine are intended as a stopgap to allow a person at risk for anaphylactic shock time to get to the emergency room. Whatever your allergy, if you have a history of severe reactions or detect symptoms of anaphylaxis after exposure to an allergen (i.e. sweating, nausea, palpitations, difficulty breathing) the epi-pen or similar devices can be life-savers. But you can’t depend on them as definitive treatment (the extent of exposure or severity of one’s allergic response will influence their effectiveness). And they’re not cheap.
It should not be assumed that everyone with a peanut allergy (or any kind of allergy) typically responds to exposure by going into anaphylactic shock (this is relatively uncommon). And I would still like to see scientific evidence that airborne peanut “essence” causes anaphylaxis.
Horhay is right.
Devices for self-injection of epinephrine are intended as a stopgap to allow a person at risk for anaphylactic shock time to get to the emergency room. Whatever your allergy, if you have a history of severe reactions or detect symptoms of anaphylaxis after exposure to an allergen (i.e. nausea/cramping, itching, difficulty breathing) the epi-pen or similar devices can be life-savers. But you can’t depend on them as definitive treatment (the extent of exposure or severity of one’s allergic response will influence their effectiveness). Some patients may require hours worth of treatment in a hospital setting.
It should not be assumed that everyone with a peanut allergy (or any kind of allergy) typically responds to exposure by going into anaphylactic shock (this is relatively uncommon). And I would still like to see scientific evidence that airborne peanut “essence” causes anaphylaxis.
And that obviously goes double for me.
I don’t think that anyone has claimed that airborne peanut “essence” causes anaphylaxis. As far as I can tell there is no proof of it because it doesn’t happen. But, people who are allergic to peanuts can have a very real reaction to the smell of peanuts.
My friend I mentioned earlier would get red eyes and a puffy face from being in a room where someone was eating peanuts. She would have this reaction even before she saw the person eating the peanut product. We took many classes together in college and Peanut M&Ms and peanut butter crackers from the vending machines were common snacks.
No, the smell of peanuts wouldn’t kill her like eating them might, but it did cause an uncomfortable physical reaction.
The ban disturbs me, and I had to think for a long time to figure out why. I finally figured its an emotional thing…
I remember fondly my mother packing my lunch (I’m sure my mother remembers it less fondly, she had to get up darn early to pack it). A brown paperbag, with my name outside in Mom’s handwriting and, when I was little, a little stick person, or a puppy dog, drawn for me by mom. The contents were always a sandwich, a piece of fruit, and some cookies and often the sandwich was peanut butter (with strawberry jam, homemade by my Grandma). (My mother was also partial to bologna with a Kraft single). There is something disturbing about not being able to continue this tradition with my kids (they could have the bologna, but peanut butter is such a kid staple, it just isn’t the same). The cookies were usually chocolate chip (homemade by mom), but for variety, peanut butter cookies or something else would appear (also homemade by mom).
Not that my nostalgia justifies someone else’s six year old needing a visit to the emergency room. And I think that this ban is appropriate in elementary schools, and maybe even middle schools, where kids often share food and kids with allergies may not completely understand the risks and can’t be expected to take responsibility.
However, by high school you need to start taking responsibility for yourself. You can be expected to know why you can’t trade cookies. In those cases, it seems to me, that peanut free zones of the lunchroom are better than an outright ban, and they only need to be used for the severely allergic (and my understanding is that emergency room trips from smelling peanuts or touching trace amounts of peanut oil are pretty rare).
And of course, by college, you should know better than to order the Pad Thai.
hijack:
This also makes me think about how our schools (at least mine) were very set up for normal (white) kids. My son is Korean, and their is a significant chance (+80%) that he will be lactose intolerant by age 9. A shame, because he loves cheese and milk - I’m hoping he doesn’t, or if he is, it is controllable enough via Lactaid and lactose free and reduced products. Only Northern Europeans and their decendents are not lactose intolerant as a majority state after early childhood, but our cafeterias when I was growing up were set to provide one beverage, milk (make that two, mine served chocolate milk as well).
Not to mention that most schools do not allow students to carry such devices with them; they have to have them locked up in the nurse’s office because they are drugs. Zero tolerance, ya know.
So even if epi-pens were a satisfactory solution for general situations, they would not be in a school situation.