Actually, peanut allergies are frequently misdiagnosed. Statistically, the vast majority of people with peanut allergies are either misinformed (they don’t actually have allergies because of an incorrect diagnosis) or are victims of me-first parents (my kid is SPECIAL!).
I have a friend who supposedly has a child with a peanut allergy. They gave him a peanut and apparently he got red. To them, this means he has a life-threatening peanut allergy. I’m sure dozens of parents believe this about their children, but again statistics do not support this at all. Food allergies - real food allergies, that is - are responsible for about 150 deaths a year in the U.S. Yet I can guarantee that in any given elementary school, there are probably 50 children or more walking around with epi-pens because they’ve been conditioned to believe they can’t go near peanuts.
I am not convinced that peanut allergies are even increasing. I have said the same thing that you have - when I was growing up (in the 80’s) I had never even heard of a peanut allergy. Hell, even in high school I didn’t. Yet now it seems like 75% of all children born in the 90’s or later has a peanut allergy. That’s statistically not possible without a major environmental change. The most logical conclusion is that it’s nothing more than massive and frequent misdiagnosis. It also may be deliberate based on the lawyer-happy mentality of most people dealing with doctors.
This peanut allergy thing, real or imagined, is not confined to this country. My wife has a nephew who lives in Scotland who has it. But I think you might be on to something as far as misdiagnosing these allergies. Similar to the mania for giving every kid , usually a boy, who can’t still still in the classroom a dose of Ritalin. Weird.