Halloween is upon us, and thus are the 7,989,872 kids that will be wandering around my office tomorrow (we have a work thing where people bring their kids to work and ‘trick or treat’ at the desks/offices).
Well, this year we’ve gotten 4 emails telling, reminding, imploring, us not to put out candy that has peanuts in it, could contain peanut residue, or as been in the same country as an elephant.
Never had this reaction around peanuts when I was a kid
so
Is this just a giant modern over reaction and over protecting the chillins, or is this truly a real problem? How prevalent is such an allergy, and how dangerous is it?
I think I’ll hand out bottles of spring water…just to be safe…
I think it’s a combination of a huge increase in the number of kids with peanut allergies and over reaction by parents.
A true allergic reaction(anaphylactic shock) is a real life threatening, ambulance lights and siren emergency.
You might also check out this thread for ideas for treats to give out.
0.8% of kids have a peanut allergy (Cite). To a small percentage of those kids (not sure what the exact percentage is), it doesn’t take much exposure to induce anaphylaxis, which is a bona fide medical emergency and can kill if left untreated. So much as a brief whiff of peanuts or peanut butter can cause a pretty dramatic reaction in some rare individuals.
Now, is this a danger with individually wrapped candies, combined with the parents of peanut-allergic kids who will undoubtedly screen the candy their kids get? Probably not. But is giving out Mr. Goodbars to all those kids really worth the risk of replacing trick-or-treaters with EMTs? Probably not. Stick with the Necco wafers.
Has there ever been any single documented case in all of medical history of anyone ever having an allergic reaction to peanuts from a mere smell, or from eating a food processed in the same factory as peanuts?
I worked in the lunchroom of an elementary school last spring. Out of 325 students, 6 (all unrelated) had severe food allergies. All were allergic to peanuts and other foods as well. These were real, actual, throat-swelling, gasping for breath, epi-pen allergies which I witnessed twice. Two of the kids were Asian immigrants whose parents barely spoke English. I used to wonder if some of these allergies were overexaggerated, but I don’t anymore.
No, but the inhalation of the peanut particles are known to cause the allergy. That’s the issue mostly- the particles of peanuts can cause reactions in those extremely sensitive to it, and peanut allergies are one of the more severe and sensitive of the hypersensitivity reactions.
*Link is to an article on peanut allergy and airplanes with a cited article documenting the cases of people having reactions to the peanut particles.
The article concludes that many food allergies result from the immune system being “primed” by an unrelated allergen - in the case of apples in europe, northern birch pollen may be the trigger. Also, mode of entry (ingestion vs lung absorption) may well be a factor.
However, food labels are becoming a problem. Litigation averse food manufacturers slap a “may contain nuts” label on everything (to cover cross-contamination), thus devaluing the warning, as most products with such a label do not actually pose any risk, and people start to ignore the labels.
A friend of mine has a child with a severe peanut allergy. Wasn’t quite what you asked, but the child came over to a neighbor’s house to play (kids were around 6 yrs old if i remember correctly). The neighbor was very aware and very supportive of the child’s allergy-one of the few families the allergic child was allowed to visit. The child sat on the rug and had a severe attack that required an ambulance. Some days previously, according to what I heard, someone had dropped a PB&J sandwich on the rug. The rug had been thoroughly cleaned up with soap and water etc. and everyone thought it was OK. Some of those kids are VERY sensitive.
Not peanuts, but my then second grade son was standing next to his teacher when he cracked a walnut. My son went into anaphylaxis which frightened the hell out of us all, as we’d known he was allergic to EATING them, but standing next to someone as they cracked one?? Scary.
Must make Halloween hard if they want to trick or treat. I can’t imagine a parent of child with severe peanut allergies letting them collect door to door at all. One peanut butter cup in the mix and they may decide to throw out the entire haul.
Both of my daughters were diagnosed as toddlers with peanut and tree nut allergies. My older daughter grew out of hers by the time she was 4, but my youngest is older than that and is still allergic to both. We just got her re-tested over the summer and the results showed that her allergy is more severe than it used to be. We don’t go anywhere without the Epi-Pen and Benadryl. We haven’t had a need to use the Pen, fortunately.
She’s very aware of it and will not eat anything that anybody gives her without asking if there are peanuts or tree nuts in it. We let her collect candy on Halloween and when she gets home we go through her bag and pull anything that was manufactured on equipment that also manufactured peanut & tree nut candy. If there’s a lot of it, we supplement her haul with stuff that we bought. If someone is giving out peanut butter cups or something, my daughter just says “no thank you” and we go to the next house.
Yes, it’s a real problem. When you consider that there’s a possibility my child could die, based on the test results we’ve seen, and we’re able to avoid that consequence if we’re vigilant about what she eats, no, I don’t think it’s an overreaction. We’re not going to experiment with it if her life is on the line.
My youngest daughter is allergic to peanuts & tree nuts. She’s never had a reaction to the smell or particles, so we just (a) make sure everything that goes in her bag is prewrapped, and (b) go through her entire haul afterwards and take out anything with nuts, and replace it with candy we’ve bought ahead of time. I can see where parents whose kids have had reactions to just the smell would want to be much more careful.
That’s exactly what we do. DangerGirl knows that she may not eat anything in her haul until it’s been screened by us. I go through her bag and take out anything she can’t have–in practice, this is just about anything chocolate, since chocolate bars are so often made on the same equipment. She can eat plain Hershey bars, but that’s about all she gets. However we don’t replace the bad stuff with candy we’ve bought for her–there’s always plenty of good stuff left over!
Generally speaking, she has a stash of chocolate treats I’ve made in the freezer, and when she is given a treat she can’t have, she gets one of those instead. (They’re rice krispies and a few marshmallows coated in good chocolate–like a rice krispie treat only better.)
One other thing, is that allergies, any allergy, can become life-threatening. That’s why having a rash after a dose of penicillin means no more penicillin. A slight reaction, even several slight reactions can suddenly become anaphylaxis. The same is true concerning the threshold dose that may cause problems.
I understand that these allergies are real and serious. But what I want to know is where were all these kids in 1985 when I was eating a PB&J sandwich everyday in the cafeteria?
Did they just die? Did they just not go to my school? Did fewer people actually have alergies back then and if so why do more people have them now (is this information tracked - have there been studies - does it corelate to the rise in autism)?
More people have them now (I’ve read “doubled over the past several decades” but have no quick cite to offer) and there is some very interesting speculation as to why.
For several decades now Western society has implemented the allergists’ mantra that avoiding foods early on will prevent allergies. We went from one extreme, my mother’s generation in a race to see who could their kids earlier and earlier, heck prenatally even, to an extreme of no solids until past 6 months or beyond, and those foods that seem most allergic? like peanuts? Hold off on them until 15 months, or 18 months, or 2 years, or longer.
And it seems that that well intended advice may have been the exact wrong thing to do. It was observed that in Israel most children are started on a snack made from ground peanuts at 6 months old and that in Israel there is hardly any peanut allergy. So this study matched Jewish descent kids in the UK, which delays the introduction of peanut containing foods, with those in Israel. Results?
Prospective studies are now being done.
It may be that complete avoidance would reduce peanut allergy incidence but that such is not what happens. Instead infants experience hidden small sensitizing exposures, in creams and other foods, ideal to cause an allergic response. A higher dose OTOH, may induce suppresser T-cells and reduce the incidence of allergies.
