Nuts, anyone?
Nuts, anyone?
No thank you. I’m allergic to Yuppie Nuts.
Aw nuts.
Warning of nut allergy 'hysteria.' Measures to protect children increasingly absurd
BBC ^ December 10, 2008
Posted on Sunday, December 21, 2008 1:27:20 PM by billorites
A peanut on the floor of a US school bus recently led to evacuation and decontamination for fear it might have affected the 10-year-old passengers.
Such extreme steps to reduce exposure to nuts are not isolated and are fuelling fear and anxiety, reports the British Medical Journal Online.
A UK allergy expert said a similar "epidemic" was present in Britain.
Professor Nicolas Christakis, a professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School, told the BMJ there was "a gross over-reaction to the magnitude of the threat" posed by food allergies, and particularly nut allergies.
In the US, serious allergic reactions to foods cause just 2,000 of more than 30 million hospitalisations a year and comparatively few deaths - 150 a year from all food allergies combined.
In the UK there are around 10 deaths each year from food allergies.
Professor Christakis said the issue was not whether nut allergies existed or whether they could occasionally be serious. Nor was the issue whether reasonable preventative steps should be made for the few children who had documented serious allergies, he argued.
"The issue is what accounts for the extreme responses to nut allergies."
He said the number of US schools declaring themselves to be entirely "nut free" - banning staples like peanut butter, homemade baked goods and any foods without detailed ingredient labels - was rising, despite clear evidence that such restrictions were unnecessary.
"School entrances have signs admonishing visitors to wash their hands before entry to avoid [nut] contamination."
He said these responses were extreme and had many of the hallmarks of mass psychogenic illness (MPI), previously known as epidemic hysteria.
Often seen occurring in small towns, schools and other institutions, outbreaks of MPI involve healthy people in a flow of anxiety, most often triggered by a fear of contamination.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
very true, but those that have nut and foold allergies can really get sick. As a matter of fact the 21% of frauds are who are causing the scoffing for the 4% that are truly allergic....
Peanuts are not nuts. They are legumes. The parents are the nuts.
this article would make sense if genes were solely responsible for allergy. but it is a little more complicated than that. hygiene, age of exposure, gut flora, antibiotic exposure, all probably play a role. allergies are increasing. but skin testing, and RAST testing are probably over sensitive.
I think I see mine there on the upper left....the shriveled ones.
The assault on peanuts was just the beginning of politically correct food nazis.
Today they go after transfats, corn syrup, and everything else.
These are the same people who go after smokers, cologne/perfume users and anything that looks, smells or feel uncomfortable.
Or a 500% increase since the seventies when I was in elementary school.
I guess that's not done anymore.
I’m allergic to yuppies, yippies, hippies, guppies, and muppets. Especially elmo.
What a coincidence.
I believe I saw something like that on November 4.
I like fish sticks.
Although I DO agree about the mass hysteria about the peanuts (It's a peanut - hit the floor!), as a family with food allergies that nearly killed my child - allergy to wheat, misdiagnosed as ulcers, and therefore fed more wheat... I can truly feel the pain!!!!
I think we as a society are becoming more aware of the allergens and are diagnosing them. As a child I was told I just had a nervous stomach because I didn't like school - "now drink your milk or you can't go to recess"...to finding out as an adult my severe stomach pain was caused because of milk allergy/lactose intolerance.
People who have not been there should not judge - severe allergies are real!
I have sensitivity to various things, but none of them are life-threatening. It's more of a quality of life thing: if I drink this, I get a headache or a runny nose. If I eat that, I'll have some digestive issues. And it's not absolute: I can tolerate small to moderate amounts, but too much will overload my system. The threshold varies according to how I'm doing overall.
I think the allergies have always been there, and the prevalence hasn't changed much. What has changed is the medical profession's ability to recognize the potential and test for it. Then predictably, some people overreact.
I love those things. However, for three million Americans, the allergy is a pretty serious issue. Granted, that’s one percent of the population.
Just wait until they discover 18% of the population is allergic to second hand medical marijuana smoke, leaves and roaches. Heads will explode.
I agree with this article on several levels. First of all, telling kids that they are allergic to something only exaggerates the reactions. Second allergy testing is not exactly fool proof, some sensitive people react to their own histamine, rendering the tests useless. For instance, I can write my name on the inside of my arm with my finger nail and raise a red welt.
Then there’s this anecdotal story:
When my kid’s were young, and I was teaching Bible school, I greeted a young mother at the door, as she dropped off her daughter, and laughingly said to her, “Oh, I see that you’ve been swimming.” When she came back to pick up her daughter, the woman asked how I knew that she had been swimming. I said because you have the rash around your eyes from the latex goggles. She was astonished because she worked for the local allergy specialist who had been treating the swimmers and yet he could not identify her allergy with all his testing. He told her that she was allergic to nail polish and must have been rubbing her eyes.
Nuts! Hot nuts!
Anybody here wanna buy my nuts?
Selling nuts, hot nuts
I’ve got nuts for sale
Now you see that man all dressed in black
His nuts is so hot he keep ‘em in a sack
He’s got nuts, hot nuts,
You buy ‘em from the peanut man
Yum.