Is there any food at all which is not known to ever cause an allergic reaction? If we’re going to prohibit a food on the grounds that it might cause an allergic reaction in a student, it seems to me that we have to prohibit all food, period.
Of course, while not strictly an allergy, lack of food can also cause unfortunate symptoms in a significant portion of the population…
[QUOTE=bordelond]
:dubious:
Why Not’s the one essentially bragging about juggling live pissed-off scorpions … and using sea urchins as stress balls … and hand-catching Portugese Men O’War for sport … and adding curare to his salsa for that oh-so-spicy kick 
[/QUOTE]
I find adding live, pissed-off scorpions to my salsa makes it nice and spicy.
[QUOTE=bordelond]
:dubious:
Why Not’s the one essentially bragging about juggling live pissed-off scorpions … and using sea urchins as stress balls … and hand-catching Portugese Men O’War for sport … and adding curare to his salsa for that oh-so-spicy kick
[/QUOTE]
laughing
Hey, now! I don’t mean to dismiss your pain, truly I don’t. I myself was in the hospital once for a perfectly dreadful set of wasp stings on the very tip of my nose. I bore a striking resemblance to Karl Malden - not an attractive thing in a 12 year old girl. Yeah, it hurt a whole hell of a lot, but it was well within the realm of normal.
Look, the only reason I’m a stickler for terms is that if we’re hanging out and see a bee and you start shrieking, “ohmigod! I’m allergic! I’m allergic!” I want to know if that means you need to show me where your Epi-pen is before you keel over, or if we can stop by the CVS for a Benedryl tab on our way home. Benadryl=normal; Epi-pen=abnormal
(And I’m a “she”, by the way.)
[QUOTE=Chronos]
Is there any food at all which is not known to ever cause an allergic reaction? If we’re going to prohibit a food on the grounds that it might cause an allergic reaction in a student, it seems to me that we have to prohibit all food, period.
[/QUOTE]
Well, if shellfish were a standard grade-school lunch and prone to releasing dust when cracked and removed from their shells, I’d approve of having a shellfish-free zone in the lunch room. Only a few food allergies seem to be life threatening, and the odds of having an allergic child in your kids class are fairly low, so most people don’t really have to worry about it. AFAIK, there are maybe 3 nut allergies in my sons K-6 school, and no one is restricting what other kids can eat, my kid might have to sit somewhere else, but yours doesn’t.
It’s not like rational people are requiring entire school districts to ban all foods, just a few teachers for a few classes have to find some other art projects.
I realize that some places are going farther than that, but going too far the other direction is just as ignorant - “Little SOB can just freakin’ break out in hives and take his epahnephreen shot, by gawd. My boy’s bringin’ peanuts fer everone! Little commie better eat 'em, too…”
Does it really upset you that much that your kid can’t cram his sandwich in my kid’s face?
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
In Australia, 3 child deaths from food allergies in the last 30 years - these were not specifically peanut allergies. Again, I believe peanut butter is not commonly consumed in Australia. Certainly not at the levels in the US.
[/QUOTE]
It’s very commonly consumed in Australia.
[QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist]
“Little SOB can just freakin’ break out in hives and take his epahnephreen shot, by gawd. My boy’s bringin’ peanuts fer everone! Little commie better eat 'em, too…”
Does it really upset you that much that your kid can’t cram his sandwich in my kid’s face?
[/QUOTE]
Right, 'cause that’s exactly what we’re saying. :rolleyes:
I would upset me EXTREMELY if my kid was shoving his sandwich in your kid’s face. We’d have words and consequences like you wouldn’t believe, including a stint of volunteering at the local children’s hospital so he could see exactly what he was exposing your kid to.
Then again, it would upset me extremely if my kid was shoving his sandwich in anyone’s face, allergies or not. That’s just not allowable behavior in my house or (once I hear about it) at school.
If the problem is misbehaving children and not enough supervision in the lunchroom, then fix that. I’m sure you don’t think it’s OK that non-allergic children get bullied in the lunchroom, do you?
Cuncator, thanks for the correction.
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Right, 'cause that’s exactly what we’re saying. :rolleyes:
[/QUOTE]
Oh yeah? Well, I forgot the smiley when I wrote that! So there!
However, how is this any different?
'Cause that’s, you know, pretty much not what anyone in this thread has advocated.
Seriously, how many of your children have been prohibited from bringing PB&J for lunch? As I tried to point out, rational people realize that their child’s safety is their own responsibility. A child who understands and is educated about their own allergy is far safer than one whose mom tries to ban all nuts in the school. Even FAAN is against school-wide bans.
Just because an allergy doesn’t kill anyone doesn’t mean it’s a pleasant thing to experience.
I didn’t mean that in response to anyone in particular in this thread; I was more responding to the phenomenon of peanut-free schools and similar silliness (which I don’t think anyone here is saying are a sensible idea). I don’t think that what I posted was hyperbole, either: As I understand it, wheat is a more common allergy than peanuts, and generally causes more severe reactions. So that sandwich might be a problem even if it’s baloney.
You know, I’ve been a paid member for something like 4 months now without a major freak-out or a mod warning. I should probably totally break down and accuse someone of something and then call you all a bunch of Republicans or Nazi’s or whatever is the proper procedure this week, and then darn you to heck… But I’d much rather watch the scorpion juggling.
I don’t know much about wheat allergies except that it’s almost impossible to eat pre-packaged foods. How severe are wheat allergies? I’ve never known anyone. Egg & soy, yes… Minor and not much of a concern, ingestion simply resulted in itchy tongue or something, and was outgrown fairly quickly.
And I thought the most common food allergies are tree nuts, peanuts, cow’s milk, eggs, soy, fish and shellfish (not necessarily in that order)(cite) while a true wheat allergy is fairly rare. Although this site lists the most common as fish, shellfish, milk, egg, soy, wheat, peanuts, and tree nuts.
Here (FDA) might explain the difference. They seem to classify “children” as “under 3” and list wheat as one of the more common allergies that are outgrown while shellfish and peanuts are not. Also claim “An estimated 150 Americans die each year from severe allergic reactions to food”. Sounds like typical government bookkeeping to me. They don’t know? At least the number is kind of close to Unca Cec’s estimate, so maybe the FDA is getting their info from him.
Just a reminder, I’m not in favor of banning peanut butter from schools or peanuts from stadiums, just no school projects involving peanuts for my kid. Balancing risk with… that other thing (it’s late), tells me that a school with 300 kids shouldn’t have to remove a staple food item because of 3 children if reasonable measures can be easily adopted that only inconvenience the 3 rather than the 300. A peanut-free table for the extremely paranoid, educating a few kids for the rest of us.
I’m sure someone can come in with a story about a peanut butter sandwich across the room causing a reaction, but that’s going to be an extreme situation. Shelled peanuts seem to be fairly rare in grade-school lunch boxes while peanut butter isn’t prone to releasing airborne proteins.
Wait, what was the question?
[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
With school starting the topic of peanut allergies, peanut free zones and peanut free schools has again reared its ugly head.
On one side are the parents who wail “but my baby could DIE if they SMELL or TOUCH a peanut!” On the other side the parents who say “my kid lives off peanut butter, this is what I pack for lunch.”
I understand ingesting peanuts can be life threatening and this is a serious illness. And I’m all for accomodation if I’m accomodating a true risk. But has anyone ever died from touching or breathing peanuts in the quantities a child would be exposed to in school - not ingesting - just touching or breathing (which I suppose is ingesting in a form)? I haven’t been able to google up much - the girl in Canada who didn’t die because her boyfriend had just eaten a peanut butter sandwich isn’t making the case here.
[/QUOTE]
Not peanuts but walnuts. My son had an anaphylactic shock reaction in his classroom when they cracked walnuts with the intention of rubbing the meat on some wood craft items to polish them. The school knew that he was allergic to walnuts but didn’t make the connection to being in the same room as them. My son was standing over the nuts as they were cracked and it set him off.
He has an epi pen, and he is not allowed in the room when nuts are now. The school is great - to keep his classroom contamination free if the other kids eat or use nuts they go to another room to do so, and he goes to join another class for the session. And yes, someone’s peanut buttery hands on him would cause the same reaction.
Right now he is off on a three day school trip, and I am worried sick. It is a physical wrench to allow him to go, as I am so worried about the food etc on the trip. But he cannot be wrapped in cotton wool, so with huge precautions in place he went. Some precautions we took - the school nurse and I went through all the menus for the three days with him and we decided what he’d order and what he’d avoid, and the hospital in the small town they are staying in has been contacted and an emergency plan drawn up in case they need to take him.
Last year they went to the same place, with the same precautions in place, but it was OK, no problem at all.
…
…
He just came back with a broken foot from jumping off a bunkbed instead! AUGH! (Entirely self inflicted - not much sympathy from anybody!)
I loved the panicked reaction when the BSE (otherwise known as mad cow) thing became well publicized. It was bloody ridiculous. Billions of dollars of revenue were lost, trade was disrupted and in some cases still hasn’t recovered, and oceans of ink were spilled over a disease that is non-contagious (unless you’re a cannibal). It has been more than a decade since it was first discovered and the total death toll over the years from this “terrifying” disease is about equal to the annual death toll from chicken pox.
If you’re frightened of dying from chicken pox, raise your hand.
That’s what I thought.
American beef was banned in Japan because the US didn’t respond strongly enough to the hype. They did initial testing and found one (1) case at that time in all of the millions of head slaughtered. There were four diagnosed cases of BSE in my prefecture alone, yet American steak is still off the menu pretty much everywhere.
No matter what their nationality, people are still damn stupid about stuff like this. Peanut hysteria in the US, bird flu and BSE and TB in Japan. I have to get yearly chest x-rays to check for tuberculosis because I work with kids. (Why they don’t simply use the antibody test instead of irradiating me, I don’t know.) And who knows what they freak out about in other parts of the world, but I’ll bet it’s equally dumb.
[QUOTE=Sleel]
Peanut hysteria in the US, bird flu and BSE and TB in Japan. I have to get yearly chest x-rays to check for tuberculosis because I work with kids. (Why they don’t simply use the antibody test instead of irradiating me, I don’t know.) And who knows what they freak out about in other parts of the world, but I’ll bet it’s equally dumb.
[/QUOTE]
Well, if your kid has a genuine nut allergy, then I wouldn’t call it “freaking out” or “dumb”. My kid was in a really bad way, and that was the fourth or fifth time. As Dangermom said, the reaction tends to get worse with each exposure.
So yes, if you can call a constant low-key anxiety about when the next attack will be I do “freak out”. But the possibility of my kid dying and my worry over it does not strike me as “dumb.”
I am not demanding wholesale banning of nuts in my kid’s school, but I am grateful that the school themselves decided not to allow nuts into his classroom after the last incident.
[QUOTE=bordelond]
Have any such cases been documented in medical literature before, say, 1990? Not coming from a position of doubt … rather, I’d like to think we, collectively, could stop doing to these kids whatever it is modern society is doing to these kids to cause these allergies :mad:
[/QUOTE]
I’ve heard of several possible reasons for increased allergies. One has already been mentioned: our immediate enviroment is too clean, so the immune system starts overreacting.
Another one I’ve often heard (but don’t know if studies bear this out), is that two very mildly allergic parents (so mild they may not even notice) produce a mulitple-allergic child, so we have a rise.
One factor that was corrobated after the Wall between the two Germanys fell (at the same time discounting the “air pollution” theory): In both Germanys, there was a similar amount of dirt in the air (which was thought to irritate the airways, producing or assisting many asthma-type allergies). But in East Germany the level of allergies was far lower. Turned out that the East Germans had much healthier food because they didn’t need or want to waste precious foreign currency on importing or producing artifical flavourings, colourings, preservatives… all that stuff that’s added to make the food taste so very much better than the other brand. (The East German people bought the food that was available, as simple as that.) So apparently, too much artifical stuff seems to help producing an allergy.
As for soy milk - I don’t know specifically about that, but in natural health circles, the usual advice is to breastfeed the child longer (western people often stop too early), and to avoid the most prominent, allergy-causing foods like nuts in the first two or three years, to lower the risk of developing allergies. And let the kid play in the dirt, of course.
[QUOTE=Hokkaido Brit]
Well, if your kid has a genuine nut allergy, then I wouldn’t call it “freaking out” or “dumb”. My kid was in a really bad way, and that was the fourth or fifth time. As Dangermom said, the reaction tends to get worse with each exposure.
So yes, if you can call a constant low-key anxiety about when the next attack will be I do “freak out”. But the possibility of my kid dying and my worry over it does not strike me as “dumb.”
I am not demanding wholesale banning of nuts in my kid’s school, but I am grateful that the school themselves decided not to allow nuts into his classroom after the last incident.
[/QUOTE]
You, personally, have a reason to be cautious. The public as a whole does not. Your school’s response is a lot more measured than seems to be the case in many places in the US. They didn’t freak out and they didn’t take absurd precautions.
Just to make my positions on live scorpions absolutely clear, I’m against juggling them. Makes them dizzy and confused, poor things.
And kudos to everyone in the thread with kids with allergies who have reacted apporpriately. Yes, I think removing the kid from activities with nuts is appropriate. If nuts are used as counters or tokens, they should be replaced with something else so the allergic kid could stay in the room. That’s all well within the realm of “sensible precautions”. I acknowledge that no one in this thread has advocated “peanut free zones” or schools, and that continuing to harp on it in this thread is swatting at strawmen. Noted, with thanks.
[QUOTE=Sleel]
If you’re frightened of dying from chicken pox, raise your hand.
[/QUOTE]
Good post, bad example.
My kids’ pediatrician IS now worried about them dying from chicken pox. :smack: What can I say? She’s very young, and had a very rare fatality from chicken pox complications during her med school rotation. She’s terrified of chicken pox now, even though she admits that chances of death are miniscule. I’ve had to refuse the vaccine in writing at every single visit. (Other that that one foible, she’s a great doctor.)
My friend’s kids’ pediatrician didn’t fucking recognize chicken pox when her kid had it, because she’d “never seen it before!” Again, young doc, started practicing after the vaccine in a small town where everyone got the vaccine. I guess my friend’s kid’s case was rather unsual looking, but it was still just plain ol’ chicken pox. Yet he was subjected to every test under the son and diagnosed as “some herpes virus of an unidentified strain”, until the little old ladies in town (you know, the 40 year olds) said, “Don’t you think that looks like chicken pox?”
Give it another 10 years, and chicken pox will be as feared as polio. :rolleyes:
(And 50 years ago, you’d have had the same rolleyes to measles or mumps or whooping cough from most folks.)
As a parent of a toddler whose mom and dad both have MD/PhD degrees (it’s sick and wrong to have that much schooling under one roof, let me tell you), and whose best friends have one of these slightly dubious severe-peanut-allergy kids, this discussion is oh-so-resonant with me.
The story about our kids’ environment being too clean is pretty compelling, I think. However, as constanze points, out, the medical recommendation is:
[QUOTE=constanze]
[snip]… to avoid the most prominent, allergy-causing foods like nuts in the first two or three years, to lower the risk of developing allergies. And let the kid play in the dirt, of course.
[/QUOTE]
That is incredibly self-contradictory: we think the problem is that kids don’t get to develop a tolerance to environmental allergens, so let them eat dirt. BUT, don’t expose them to the very allergens that we’re most concerned about.
A big part of the problem is something that many of you are probably aware of: epidemiological studies suck. It’s really difficult to learn anything convincing from human populations because they’re so darn uncontrolled. I work in a lab with animals from a small, uniform breeding pool who are all raised in identical conditions, and there’s still a huge amount of variability between subjects. When it comes to people, we try to account for some relatively rare event (allergic reactions to food) by looking at patterns of one particular behavior (exposure or non-exposure to nuts in infancy/toddlerhood) while having no control over the countless other GIGANTIC factors that probably play in to the phenomenon: to name a few, socioeconomic status, genetic heritage, differences in the local environment. As a result, the history of medical science is basically a series of wild swings in the theories of what to focus on, most of which are seen in retrospect to reflect prevailing social beliefs more than, or to the exclusion of, science.
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
My kids’ pediatrician IS now worried about them dying from chicken pox. What can I say? She’s very young, and had a very rare fatality from chicken pox complications during her med school rotation. She’s terrified of chicken pox now, even though she admits that chances of death are miniscule. I’ve had to refuse the vaccine in writing at every single visit. (Other that that one foible, she’s a great doctor.)
[/QUOTE]
This is another big problem (and what essentially drove me to focus exclusively on laboratory science). People impart medical opinion with all kinds of authority, and sometimes the backing of a single doctor can lead a parent to set the policy for an entire school. But the reality is that doctors develop their opinions primarily from the peculiar set of patients they’ve seen. Not only is this a totally random and highly unscientific data set to go by, but often (as in the case of this doc) their training involves seeing people in very specialized circumstances that just don’t generalize to the rest of the world very well.
I find that the single most reliable rule in parenting is ‘what would cavemen do’ (or WWCD, if you like). Babies were designed (using that term in a decidedly teleological, NOT theological, sense) to survive in the pre-technological wild. When I have a question about whether something is safe or prudent with my kid, I try to ask myself what the cavemen would do in similar circumstances. I will of course admit that sanitation is a good thing – thanks to it our life expectancy and rate of childhood survival are much improved compared to the cavemen. And obviously there are situations where the rule doesn’t quite apply (car seats, for example). But I’m quite certain that playing in the dirt and eating the fruits of nature are good things, and that we don’t need to freak out if a kid gets hold of a nut product. Now if you say your kid has a severe allergy and that you don’t want any nuts around, I’m not going to fight you. But I’ll still say that it’s making the problem worse for the rest of us.
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Give it another 10 years, and chicken pox will be as feared as polio. :rolleyes:
(And 50 years ago, you’d have had the same rolleyes to measles or mumps or whooping cough from most folks.)
[/QUOTE]
Chicken pox isn’t all that deadly, but measles and mumps and pertussis, while they were once standard childhood illnesses, are actually pretty dangerous, aren’t they?
I’ve been wondering for quite some time about this in relation to our new maxim that letting kids get dirty is important to their health. I’m not saying it’s not true, or unlikely, but I wonder how well proven it is. Particularly since there’s always someone eager to point it out in every discussion of allergies, asthma, and so forth (whether it’s relevant or not.) You can see that here on the SDMB - you won’t ever come across a thread about any of these subjects without someone cheerfully pointing out that the current best practice is to make sure not to be too clean (I’m not even sure why they bother, since this has become the conventional wisdom as far as I can tell.)
I wonder whether this idea’s success is more due to the current backlash against antibacterial this and that rather than any real scientific truth. It’s not that I find the idea hard to believe - but it’s really remarkable to me how much resonance it seems to have with people. I have to think that’s due to current social ideas as much as it is science.
[QUOTE=spazurek]
The story about our kids’ environment being too clean is pretty compelling, I think. However, as constanze points, out, the medical recommendation is:
[snip]… to avoid the most prominent, allergy-causing foods like nuts in the first two or three years, to lower the risk of developing allergies. And let the kid play in the dirt, of course.
That is incredibly self-contradictory: we think the problem is that kids don’t get to develop a tolerance to environmental allergens, so let them eat dirt. BUT, don’t expose them to the very allergens that we’re most concerned about.
[/quote]
I think you misunderstood the important part of my sentence: avoid certain, allergy-causing foods in the first two or three years. Just as medical opinion is to avoid things like Sauerkraut and other cabbages for toddlers, because their stomach isn’t up to digesting these, but you can give Sauerkraut to a 10-year old. Resistance to common bacteria and the like is built up slowly, while the child develops. “Playing in the dirt” doesn’t wiping and disinfecting every surface in sight, and when the kids get older, they play naturally in the dirt and come into contact with things slowly, so they can adapt to it.
Likewise, if you give a four-year old nuts to eat, it may not cause an allergy to develop, but if you regularly fed a one-year old nuts, it might trigger an allergy to develop.
Let’s not forget that before 1990, people - adults - have developed allergies to stuff after years and years of exposure: famous are flour dust allergies in bakers, or latex allergies in nurses, doctors etc. Often, these people have had contact with the allergen for decades, and suddenly, their system can’t cope anymore. Obviously, there’s still a lot we don’t know about allergies; obviously there are several factors, obviously, genetics may play some part, but how much the genetic condition develops depends on behaviour after birth, obviously there are several different types of allergies, and different intensities in individuals.
Your point about multiple factors and difference in individuals is always an important one to make in medicine and biology. But apparently, the advice to keep the typical 5 or 10 allergens away from the kid during toddler years, esp. if you suspect the kid might have inherited allergy potential, and feeding a healthy*, balanced diet otherwise, and letting the kid play in the dirt, seems to work for many people, at least according to personal anecdotes. (I don’t know if any studies have been done on this). And this recommendation isn’t unhealthy or unsafe, so what’s the problem with trying it?
*healthy in this case means not only vitamins and fiber, but specifically natural foods, without artifical flavours, colours, preservatives etc., since these chemicals seem also to be related to allergies.
Besides, if the vast majority of allergic people - kids and adults - (real allergies, not the hypochondriacs) are allergic to the same recurring proteins, like nuts, which also occurs in some grasses, or tomatoes, or strawberries, then it seems reasonable to assume that something about the shapes of these specific proteins seems to be a problem for the immunesystem under certain circumstances.
[QUOTE=spazurek]
I find that the single most reliable rule in parenting is ‘what would cavemen do’ (or WWCD, if you like). Babies were designed (using that term in a decidedly teleological, NOT theological, sense) to survive in the pre-technological wild. When I have a question about whether something is safe or prudent with my kid, I try to ask myself what the cavemen would do in similar circumstances. I will of course admit that sanitation is a good thing – thanks to it our life expectancy and rate of childhood survival are much improved compared to the cavemen. And obviously there are situations where the rule doesn’t quite apply (car seats, for example). But I’m quite certain that playing in the dirt and eating the fruits of nature are good things, and that we don’t need to freak out if a kid gets hold of a nut product. Now if you say your kid has a severe allergy and that you don’t want any nuts around, I’m not going to fight you. But I’ll still say that it’s making the problem worse for the rest of us.
[/QUOTE]
I agree, and go by the same rule. It’s worth noting that using this rule, however, peanut and nut exposure would be limited in very young children. Not only are they only ripe and storable for a limited time, but they can be labor intensive to pick and shell and need to be ground for young 'uns, which used to be a labor intensive process before Whole Foods. And, of course, our nuts are huge and inbred compared to the caveman’s. (Perhaps we’ve unwittingly selected for a strain or two of peanuts that is more allergenic than the wider genetic variety once available.) So, once again, we’re faced with “moderation”. A handful of ground nuts once or twice a month is probably cavemama approved. 2 Tablespoons of peanut butter every day for lunch for a toddler isn’t.
[QUOTE=Excalibre]
I’ve been wondering for quite some time about this in relation to our new maxim that letting kids get dirty is important to their health. I’m not saying it’s not true, or unlikely, but I wonder how well proven it is. Particularly since there’s always someone eager to point it out in every discussion of allergies, asthma, and so forth (whether it’s relevant or not.) You can see that here on the SDMB - you won’t ever come across a thread about any of these subjects without someone cheerfully pointing out that the current best practice is to make sure not to be too clean (I’m not even sure why they bother, since this has become the conventional wisdom as far as I can tell.)
I wonder whether this idea’s success is more due to the current backlash against antibacterial this and that rather than any real scientific truth. It’s not that I find the idea hard to believe - but it’s really remarkable to me how much resonance it seems to have with people. I have to think that’s due to current social ideas as much as it is science.
[/QUOTE]
Don’t we have some experiences about living in a sterile enviroment in the last decades from people with immuno-related diseases? Or is this not transferrable because of these atypical diseases?
But the recommendation to not be germaphobic, and become more relaxed about normal dirt, at least counters the dangers of using anti-bacterial cleaning stuff for ordinary homes! (The last crazy ads are for antibacterial dishwashing soaps. How often does the average household have salmonella infection that would require hard stuff?)
I thought that studies show that kids who grow up on farms develop less allergies than kids who grow up in the cities, despite all the grass and animals hairs around them, so this would point to the dirt is necessary-theory.