It’s for the children.
Someone had to do it. I resisted and resisted…
I can’t speak to the school question, since we aren’t in the school system. But right there you’ve highlighted why food allergies are different from environmental allergies. There’s therapy available for your son’s issues; it’s not perfect, but it’s there. There are no shots for nut allergies, and only one or two experimental therapies so far that aren’t widely available and which are still pretty iffy. A food allergy can get drastically worse with exposure–I would have to be insane to ask my child to interact with peanuts on a daily basis, but making your kid go outside is just fine. Every time my kid meets a nut, but especially a peanut, she is one step further down the road to possible anaphylaxis, which I would really kind of prefer to avoid.
Again, that makes sense, but in the grand scheme of things, I would wager that more kids (and adults) die of bee/wasp/hornet sting induced anaphalaxys than peanut induced – yet the kids are still encouraged (at least for now, thank Og) to go outside and play. I don’t really have a dog in the fight, since 1) the current school doesn’t ban peanuts, 2) my kids would live just fine if it were disallowed, and 3) meh – I just wondered why peanuts so much more than any other allergen are banned.
It was just a passing thought while I packed peanuts in my son’s bag for snack time, nothing more. Some of the answers have been very insightful for why individuals don’t want their own kids around peanuts, but nothing has convinced me that there is more reason to ban peanuts than cashews, macadamias or shrimp puffs.
Part is over-reaction. No doubt. BUT: Another part is the ubiquity of p-nuts as opposed to shrimp puffs.
Next, the reactions to p-nuts is often more severe. Lastly, there is the issue that with p-nuts, it can be caused by such a tiny
amount.
http://www.allerg.qc.ca/peanutallergy.htm
“1)* Peanut allergy occurs with surprising frequency in young children: 17 before age one; 30 between one and two years of age; 19 between two and three years of age; and 3 between three and four years of age;
2) children do not seem to lose peanut allergy very often;
3) accidental reactions are common;
4) reactions in young children may require emergency Rx. …
Peanut allergy is characterized by more severe symptoms than other food allergies and by high rates of symptoms on minimal contact…
Threshold doses
-The minimum dose of food protein to which subjects with food allergy have reacted in double-blind, placebo-controlled food challenges is between 50 and 100 mg. (double-blind and placebo-controlled signify that neither the patient nor physician know whether the food or a placebo [substitute] is being used [food evaluated and a substitute both appear the same], and a control non allergic individual also participates in the challenge) However, subjects with peanut allergy often report severe reactions after minimal contact with peanuts, even through intact skin. In a group of well-characterized , highly sensitive subjects with peanut allergy, the threshold dose of peanut varies. As little as 100 microg. of peanut provoke symptoms in some subjects with peanut allergy*”
Now from the same cite, some debunking: "The incidence of food allergy in children is approximately 1.3% and among adults 0.3% according to Chandra (1997). 5
-True food allergies are much less prevalent than is generally believed. They are more common in infants and children under age three than in older children and adults. Infant colic generally is not caused by a food allergy. In infants, urticaria, eczema or gastrointestinal bleeding may be due to foods such as milk and eggs, but clinical tolerance usually develops within a few years:eek: Note the overall rarity and except for peanuts, it can be best to just let kids “get over” the allergy in some cases. ymmv.
This is a very long cite and I suggest further reading in it.
DrDeth, thanks for the cite. It is interesting that so little can trigger a response, and that makes sense. It still doesn’t explain why the schools aren’t as worried about that wasp nest on the tree by the swings, but hey – no one (or organisation) is perfect, right?
I am sure that few schools would allow a kid to take a beehive to show & tell.
The school should be worried about a wasp’s nest - anyone, even those without an allergy to stings, can be in serious trouble if they get stung on the throat (and getting stung on the eye isn’t pleasant either). Bees aren’t such a big problem, because they’re less likely to sting. You can’t keep all stinging insects out of a playground, but I’m surprised a school doesn’t care about an actual wasps’ nest. I expect a risk analysis would say that the risks from never allowing children to play outside are greater than the risks of potential reactions.
I seem to be pretty much allergic to everything, includng stings; the last time I was stung, my hand swelled up to elephantine proportions and I had a high fever. But that’s not going to kill me, so I quite happily go outside.
Edited to add extra info.
Well, I think it was a hypothetical wasps’ nest; IME school maintenance people generally make sure there aren’t actually wasps’ nests on school grounds.
Actually not - in fact supposedly high-quality peanut oil is free from the proteins that trigger the allergic reaction. “high quality” meaning produced carefully in good conditions; imported stuff might not be subject to the same quality controls that folks in the US are used to (despite recent publicity over peanut butter, most US-produced food is reasonably safe). My son - known to be allergic to peanuts due to definite reactions in the past - has safely eaten foods cooked in peanut oil, though we do try to avoid that.
My WAG re the original question is that it’s a combination of the peanut-allergy’s potential to cause such a severe reaction, and sometimes upon such a casual exposure (inhalation of particles from someone eating nearby), that the schools are being over cautious. My son’s elementary school insisted on putting him at a no-peanuts table even when we assured him that his allergy was not that sensitive.