Posted on 01/10/2009 9:19:49 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
Your kid doesn't have an allergy to nuts. Your kid has a parent who needs to feel special. Your kid also spends recess running and screaming, "No! Stop! Don't rub my head with peanut butter!"
Yes, a tiny number of kids have severe peanut allergies that cause anaphylactic shock, and all their teachers should be warned, handed EpiPens and given a really expensive gift at Christmas. But unless you're a character on "Heroes," genes don't mutate fast enough to have caused an 18% increase in childhood food allergies between 1997 and 2007. And genes certainly don't cause 25% of parents to believe that their kids have food allergies, when 4% do. Yuppiedom does.
~snip~
Parents may think they are doing their kids a favor by testing them and being hyper-vigilant about monitoring what they eat, but it's not cool to freak kids out. Only 20% of kids who get a positive allergy test result need treatment. And a 2003 study showed that kids who were told they were allergic to peanuts had more anxiety and felt more physically restricted than if they had diabetes. "It's anxiety-producing to imagine that having a snack in kindergarten could be deadly," Christakis said. Remember, this is a demographic so easily panicked that, equipped with only circles and dots, it invented an inoculation to cooties.
~snip some more~
So bring back nuts to schools. If parents need to panic about a food, at least go with seafood allergies. Those fish sticks are disgusting.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Well congrats. It seems you are as wierd as me. when I go to my highschool reunion, nobody has a clue who I am. Every ten years it’s the same routine. THe same people say to me that they can’t believe how much I’ve grown or how big I am.
Well, for crimeny sakes, I haven’t grown for over 20+ years people!
What’s funny is my sister(who sunburns even worse than me and won’t admit it but has coarse redish hair and greenish eyes) has a daughter with tight curly white blond hair(coarse), darkish skin, and light blue eyes.
There’s no figuring it out. I give up. We are all mutts.
And I’ve gone around questioning everyone about their teeth. I’m the only one that has redskin teeth(chinese). I also seem to be the only one living that has the baby fine, baby-fuzz hair. Both my grandfathers had it, but nobody remembers if they acquired it after they got old and started to go bald, or if they had it their entire lives. I had it my entire life. Also, my extreme hairiness seems to go against the family grain. There are very hairy people in my family. BUt I’m so far to the extreme that I don’t match up with the rest of the relatives. Call me robin williams or sean connery. Maybe I got scotish in me too.
yup, but nothing is worse than anaphylactic shock. I have been there....and it aint pretty.
So you are saying that my corn allergy could be a corn gluten intolerance? I have been allergy tested twice and corn showed up as allergy both times.
Yuppie Gooberphobia.
If 4% of kids got sick from being near a peanut, then on average, every class would have someone in danger. So how have I gotten so old without ever meeting anyone endangered by peanuts?
Since I never met a kid with a peanut allergy - at least, not one serious enough to notice - either these allergies have exploded since the 60s, or there are a bunch of panty-waisted pansies running around today.
I’m betting on #2.
I dont know anyone with that type of peanut allergy either
I do believe there is a serious overreaction.
I do know of other food allergies, I acquired a slew of them in my 50th year. out of the blue. go figure.
So...does your son get sick from the sight of a peanut? Does he go into convulsions if someone else is eating a peanut?
If so, wrap him in bubblewrap, ‘cause the world is a tough place. If not, teach him not to eat peanuts.
Your corn allergy could have both a genetic basis as well as an auto-immune reaction to overexposure to various enzymes and proteins in corn.
If that were the case your best efforts at avoiding corn and corn byproducts would still leave you open to attacks from the same chemicals in other foods or materials to which you were exposed.
BTW, the determination of an autoimmune reaction to corn protein is not going to be done the same way you check for an allergic reaction. There has to be something out there that can measure your anti-body levels (by type) before and after consuming corn.
Give you a comparison. I know that wheat is a problem. However, I show no allergic response to wheat. On the other hand I have an intolerance to the gluten in wheat. My T-Cells want to attack it like it's the end of the world. For many years I was asymptomatic and thought of these occasional attacks as the consequence of maybe drinking too much beer (barley is same thing as wheat), or eating too many rye sandwiches (rye is same thing as wheat), or maybe drinking too much milk (for me, no milk at all is best).
After minor abdominal surgery I was suddenly faced with the fact that "things had really changed". I changed my diet instantly, that having been my lifelong practice when faced with such problems. First I threw out the rye. Then the barley. Then the wheat. Within weeks I was down to focusing on foods where wheat gluten might be hidden ~ soy sauce, barbeque sauce, pie filling, commercial cheese cake, and some corn tortillas.
Later on I discovered you can't trust chocolate, and Fur Shur, candy! Many modern candies are sweetened with processed wheat.
At the same time I arranged for the special test for antibodies (see your doctor about what's available). Amazingly I had NONE at all of the type being measured. Later on I found that some folks who have the problem with wheat have a slightly different gene and that is associated with not having that type of antibody.
Which leaves me with a lifetime of label reading and food avoidance. You're in the same boat, but it may be worse since there are so many more of us than of you and we're fighting to get corn in there to replace the ever dangerous wheat.
Maybe we should become advocates for tapioca!
If they were allergic to peanuts then alfalfa, clover, peas, beans, lentils, lupins, mesquite, and carob would also pose a problem. Parents need to get a grip. Either the kid is acting on cue or there is something else going on.
My nephew has the severe allergy. He goes to a private, peanut-free school that my sister pays for out of her own pocket.
Like most people on this site, I don’t always read every post before responding to an earlier comment. I also do not track each respondent thru the entire thread by name.
It sounds like we are in agreement on how to handle it. I am entirely willing to refrain from eating peanuts near someone with an allergy, but schools and workplaces going ‘peanut-free’ is silly. When I can’t eat a bag of peanuts on an airplane for fear someone somewhere might be affected, accommodation has gone too far.
Sorry I overreacted...it seems to be a national trend.
My posts followed each other, but I have been accused of not reading all posts either.
This however, is a pet peeve of mine. Just because my son has peanut allergies does not mean other people have to suffer for it. We actually have peanut butter in the house here. I eat it on occasion and so does my husband.
The whole problem is that people refuse to teach their children to take responsibility for themselves. A 7 year old child is old enough to know how to protect him or herself from food allergies. Those children with severe allergies should either take food with them or check before they eat something.
No more calls, please. We have a winner.
“Nuts, anyone?”
Serve ‘em Mountain Oysters - no allergy there.
More psychosomatic allergies from the loons who scare their kids into real rashes by suggestion.
So you never make a judgment based on empirical evidence? ou never use deductive reasoning? You always reserve your opinion or judgment SOLELY to those things to which you have personal experience?
“But I do think people over react to everything that might harm a child. Those kind of nuts we should all avoid. “
That is what this is about. It’s one thing to acknowledge some people have food allergies. Its another thing to panic and induce fear and lock down a school if an M&M rolls down the hall.
Punishing the masses for what in most cases represents a discomforting reaction by a minuscule minority is asinine and selfish.
“My brother has gone into anaphalactic shock from bee stings. He carries an Epi-pen. Or, we could demand that all bees must die. The whining just never ends. “
Ding, ding ding! We have a Winna!
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