Is Nuts the new Aids

[tchwojko]

Alright. Name a few.

Off the top of my head, there are better I'm sure:
Nut free rooms.
Nut free days.
Wearing gloves
Wearing a mask
Classes of only kids with food issues

[Phantom5588]

Sir Alexander, life is not fair. I am telling you this because judging by the way that you are responding to this topic and other's input you have clearly never been told this.

The fact of the matter is, why would 99% of the population change their ways when a mere 1% of the population could take their own precautions?

When you grow up, you might consider moving to a different country where freedom isn't as important, staging a hostile takeover and once you are the supreme undisputed ruler of Neverland you can ban all nuts/nut products/people who like to eat nuts. Then you can live happily ever after.

[Sir Alexander]

Nut free rooms: Alright. I admit it. That could actually work quite well.

Nut free days: If a child has severe food allergies the residue would be around all the time so nut free days would be usless.

Wearing gloves or a mask: It's school. Not a fencing match.

Classes of only kids with food issues: Could work.....

Sir Alexander, life is not fair. I am telling you this because judging by the way that you are responding to this topic and other's input you have clearly never been told this.

I understand that. And I agree that the whole poulation changing is just not feasible or right. But changing the way they do things in schools where young children who can not take care of themselves properly yet is definitly NOT ridiculous.

[DHCJr]

The article points out some extreme examples. We've found most policies about food in schools to be mostly rational and reasonable. Similarly, most parents and students are reasonable in their expectations. But the extreme cases get all the news.

Thank you. You said part of what I wanted to say, but more elegantly.

We seem to take things to the extreme. When a accident happen on a freeway on the other side, you have drivers on the other side slow down to look and cause more accidents and slow down the traffic on their side. If someone is accused of statutory rape, many consider them guilty period, even when studies have shown that more false accusations occur. When a fire engine came down our street, I looked outside and saw many running to follow it. Don’t they understand that is where you don’t want to be? I don't believe in guns in the home, especially with children. But I also believe that they should know how to handle them safely.

We have more deaths from underage drinking. Why don’t we do more about that?

Here is a part that no one mentioned from the article, “Some researchers suggest that an overly hygienic lifestyle may hamper the body's ability to build up proper immunities; others believe the statistical rise is a combination of a real increase in allergies and an increase in the number of patients seeking diagnosis (i.e., getting allergy tests that turn up very low levels of reaction that might otherwise have gone undiscovered). "You have to distinguish between an epidemic of diagnoses and an epidemic of allergies," says Christakis.”

We seem to protect our kids too much, so that when they become adults they don’t know how to protect themselves. It’s like, to protect an endangered species we take all the babies born and put them in a protected area, like a zoo and when they grow up put them back into the wild.

We have to protect them, but how much. We seem to have taken to the extreme.

[TBean]

Alexander, children with nut allergies like yours and matts have to learn from an extremely young age what the ramifications of that allergy means. My son goes to school with several kids in his grade with life-threatening nut allergies, I have had them over to my house to play and seen them at birthday parties - not one of these children (and I mean 8 year-olds) is unaware that food poses a risk for them. They frequently turn down offers of food, ask what is in things, go without treats or bring their own food to events. This is what they have to learn, not that the environment that they are in will make arrangements to suit their allergy. That is not how it works.

Reasonable accomodations to ensure safety - our school has a nut-free table in the lunch-room, our particular classroom has a no nut policy for parties as one of the students is severely allergic, we cannot bring food in for parties that does not have an ingredients list that can be double checked and there is a strict school policy of no sharing or trading of food. The school lunches are peanut free.

Young children are not so helpless - very young is a different matter - but by first grade they MUST have developed some significant skills to manage their allergy. The school should help make with policies that make it safer for the kids, but still allows them to participate in the life of school in a somewhat normal manner, and allows all the other students to also have a normal school experience. You cannot have it another way - if the parents of a student with such severe allergies want it another way then I suggest a public school education is not for them.

[Sir Alexander]

Alexander, children with nut allergies like yours and matts have to learn from an extremely young age what the ramifications of that allergy means. My son goes to school with several kids in his grade with life-threatening nut allergies, I have had them over to my house to play and seen them at birthday parties - not one of these children (and I mean 8 year-olds) is unaware that food poses a risk for them. They frequently turn down offers of food, ask what is in things, go without treats or bring their own food to events. This is what they have to learn, not that the environment that they are in will make arrangements to suit their allergy. That is not how it works.

Reasonable accomodations to ensure safety - our school has a nut-free table in the lunch-room, our particular classroom has a no nut policy for parties as one of the students is severely allergic, we cannot bring food in for parties that does not have an ingredients list that can be double checked and there is a strict school policy of no sharing or trading of food. The school lunches are peanut free.

Young children are not so helpless - very young is a different matter - but by first grade they MUST have developed some significant skills to manage their allergy. The school should help make with policies that make it safer for the kids, but still allows them to participate in the life of school in a somewhat normal manner, and allows all the other students to also have a normal school experience. You cannot have it another way - if the parents of a student with such severe allergies want it another way then I suggest a public school education is not for them.

Ok. I can admit when I'm wrong. Those precautions do work quite well (I went to school until 3rd grade and that, for the most part, is what we did.)

As far as not being able to take care of themselves goes, I was referring to preschool/kindergarteners.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

A friend of mine in college was one of the people who couldn't be around if you could smell peanut butter. My sister is just allergic to ingesting nuts, but is fine around them.

So.. this is getting worse. More kids are more allergic than there were 20 years ago. If this is as far as we get, having a no-nuts table, having a no-nuts room, those things will be enough. Perhaps a no-nuts airline? I'm sure that enough people are allergic so that one airline that promises openly that they never serve nuts and request that people don't bring them on would be economically useful. But what if things get worse? If a full half of the population of the United States becomes uncomfortable when around nuts, things will get bad.

I guess I just get a bit wierded out when basic precautions aren't followed. College dining is always a challenge. When you have that many people with complicated preferences, intolerances, and allergies, both the students and the servers need to be careful. Smith was always very good-- I'm (very!) lactose intolerant, and if I wasn't sure, I could always ask. If I had needed to, I could have informed a dining hall and had something made specifically for me. As long as things weren't too crazy, even the dining halls not set up for people with special needs would make something without cheese, and anywhere I went regularly, the staff remembered who I was and would let me know what I should avoid. But nuts? Nuts were always well marked in every dining hall.

Then I went to North Carolina State for the summer a couple years ago. Things were marked Vegan and covered in cheese, things were marked vegetarian and had meat in them. I would regularly find nuts in things that weren't labeled as having nuts in them, and I often couldn't find someone who knew what was in something. It's a good thing that I can taste for dairy well, and that a bite or two of something with hidden dairy is only mild discomfort. I can't imagine trying to survive with a nut allergy there. So as much as some places are going somewhat overboard to the nut thing, some places are not doing the basics.

[tchwojko]

More kids are more allergic than there were 20 years ago.

I *think* that's true, but I only know anecdotal evidence. It's possible it's just better diagnosed. Do you know of any good current data? I haven't looked at this in a few years. (And thankfully, there's evidence that our son's allergy is diminishing in severity.)

Last I checked there was little known about causes and the mechanisms for food allergies: why it happens, how it happens, how it changes, etc.

[DHCJr]

I *think* that's true, but I only know anecdotal evidence. It's possible it's just better diagnosed. Do you know of any good current data? I haven't looked at this in a few years. (And thankfully, there's evidence that our son's allergy is diminishing in severity.)

Last I checked there was little known about causes and the mechanisms for food allergies: why it happens, how it happens, how it changes, etc.

In the article, there are some figures from the U.K. & Isreal. There is an ongoing study that won't be ready for 3 years.

They are looking at early nut exposure to help 'immunize' kids against the allergy.