Posted on 01/04/2005 7:54:07 AM PST by TheBigB
YORKTOWN, Ind. — Savannah Dowling is a typical 8-year-old girl; much of her protein comes from peanut butter sandwiches.
However, if she wants to bring one to Central Indiana's Pleasant View Elementary School, she has to eat it at a special table in the cafeteria to accommodate one first grader with a severe allergy. Soon she'll have to take her lunch to an area the school is calling the "peanut gallery" so the one child with the peanut allergy isn't affected.
"I don't think everybody should have to suffer because of one kid," said Mike Raper, a critic of the idea and fiancé of Savannah's mother. "I think it's a terrible precedent. Basically, because there's nowhere to draw the line. You've got people allergic to milk, wheat. My own son's diabetic. There's just no where to draw that line."
School Superintendent Mary Ann Irwin called it "one of the most challenging" accommodations the school has made for its students.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Peanut allergies are real.
I've seen it happen.
My nephew is very allergic and he got a hold of a chocolate chip cookie that was made in the same factory that makes peanut butter cookies and his throught closed up and he couldn't breath.
Luckily, my wife is a PICU nurse and happened to have an EpiPen in her purse.
Should that include having as much hysteria as possilble about garlic and those that are inconsiderate enough to actually consume it?
I have an allergy to peanuts as well, not diagnosed until I was well into adulthood. Although not severe my doctor said it will become worse with subsequent exposures.
It is easier for me to avoid exposures but in some cases there is no choice. If this is a life-threatening situation for the child by all means protect the child.
In worst cases just exposure to pollen from peanuts can cause a severe reaction that requires imediate medical intervention. So isolating someone from peanut exposure may not be so simple. Peanut butter on unwashed hand of a child can potentially cause a severe reaction for some. So how do you seperate the peanut consumers from those who suffer allergys? The school could ban peanut butter completely so the child would not have to be isolated. But I think giving the child a peanut-free location option is the only choice, like it or not.
Thankfully for me that is not the case as of now, but could be in the future. Even peanut cooking oil causes a noticible reaction so in the big picture avoidance is the best option when possible. Peanut allergy is more common than people realize.
What's wrong with putting all the PB kids tpgether for lunch? Maybe they would make some new friends.
My son, now 30 something, has a PB allergy. When he was in elementary school (Jimmy Carter Presidency) the cafeteria lady told him that because the french fries were cooked in peanut oil(part of the school lunch gov't surplus program) he couldn't have them. I called the school just to ask if the next time veg.oil was purchased it could be of the non-peanut variety. Fortunately, he was attending a private school and a portion of FF was cooked just for him.
This is a serious problem for any child/person who is so affected.
LOL! [ Repeat 300 times ]
Yeah, but what if it was YOUR child?
It's a new phenomenon, probably something to do with taking the pill, global warming, and Bush.
Actually it's thought that it's due to the increasing use of soy-based formula for children. Soy is a legume (and thus is related to peanuts), and the introduction of leguminous proteins to a vulnerable infant system may set the stage for later peanut allergies. Should've stuck with breastfeeding, or cow or goat milk -- all of which worked fine for thousands of years.
My child would be learning at home - not being exposed to stupidity in public school.
Then there needs to be a law prohibiting restaurants from selling shellfish and food cooked with peanut oil. Its that simple.
ADD is severely over-diagnosed. The majority of kids (mostly boys) who are diagnosed with ADD are normal, high-energy kids.
ADD does exist and kids who really have it should be treated. However, real ADD sufferers make up a minority of the kids who are "diagnosed" with ADD.
It doesn't kill me, I just violently sick.
We don't keep garling at home (or products containing garlic, however my wife uses garlic whenever I misbehave. She adds a bit on my meals just to show she can make my life hell; my revenge is to barf all over the place.
My four year old cousin recently almost died from sticking his finger in a cake that had almonds in it. He didn't eat the cake, he just stuck his finger in the icing. So I'm sorry if your memory is a little foggy, but some food allergies are no joke. Still, if the kid does have such a serious allergy to peanuts, maybe he should eat in a seperate 'peanut butter free' zone instead of everyone else having to sit in a special section if they want to eat peanut butter.
It's generally the other way around. More exposure causes more sensitivity.
Yes, that would make much more sense. That's probably why they aren't doing it.
Not to mention it would be far easier to watch for peanut butter at one table than to search every kid and direct the pb&j wielders to their corner. IMO.
I think the easiest solution is to try to teach our children on what political correctness is. Then when they start seeing it in the classroom, they can fall on the floor holding their ears screaming in pain. Then we invent a syndrome and relate it to political correctness. All PC teachers would have to be isolated and children are saved.
If it were my child and she had a condition where exposure to a common substance could cause instant death, I wouldn't place her in the hands of beaurocrats. That's why I am not convinced that the peanut scare is on the level. What parent in their right mind would send their child into that kind of risk?
I find it ironic that the Muslim kids at my kids' school are not allowed to eat marshmallows because they contain gelatin. And gelatin contains...well, you don't want to know what gelatin contains. But they eat jello. Hello!!
"Fine, so have a "Peanut Free" area in the cafeteria, problem solved. Whay have the inverse?"
In my first post I said I'm not sure the school is using the best solution. However, I strongly disagree with the people who think the child is part of some "fringe group."
"This child will not go through life with his/her path being cleared before him/her of peanuts, just better get used to it."
This is true, but as I pointed out in another post, we protect very young children from other dangers -- street traffic, going places by themselves -- simply because they are too young to safely handle these things by themselves. As they get older we don't coddle them as much. Exactly why should this life-threatening allergy be any different?
That's a good possibility. I have also heard that soy effects the reproductive organs. A possible cause of kids literally maturing too fast? Just a thought. I know I do not have anything with soy in it. It does weird things to me.
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