Wow. Your acccount has me wondering.
People here say they never heard of anyone dying of a food-allergic reaction when they went to school.
Having studied the matter, do you think life threatening allergies like your kid has, at least the numbers reported, are a recent phenomenon?
It is certainly increasing in frequency.
The number of Americans with food allergies is dramatically increasing. In the past five years, this number has risen from seven to over eleven million! Over 6.5 million adults are allergic to seafood and over 3 million children are allergic to peanuts and tree nuts. In fact, the number of children allergic to peanuts doubled from 1997 to 2002. Eight percent of children less than 3 years of age have food allergies in the United States and that number is increasing each year. It is estimated that each year hundreds of Americans die due to the ingestion of allergenic foods and over 30,000 receive life-saving treatment in emergency rooms.