The child had to eat something, and the ingredients on the label and the store clerk assured her that the food did not contain tree nuts.
This sort of food allergy--especially peanuts!--has become a HUGE health crisis reaching epidemic proportions.
Nobody knows exactly what's causing it.
The labeling of food is a good thing, but it must be dependable.
If your child had a deadly allergy would you trust a minimum wage worker with their life? Did the Mother actually read any ingredients?
My children can’t take nuts to school because of the remotest chance that one of kids with allergies might come in contact with nuts.
The mother could should have been able to see that the bakery had nut-based items behind the counter, and should have know that despite the reassurances from a Publix employee, that there was a good possibility that there was cross-contamination.
For these parents, don’t assume the employee knows if there is cross-contamination, since most likely, the employee really doesn’t know the severity of the consequences for being wrong.
In other words, if there is a doubt, leave it out (of your child’s mouth).
‘The child had to eat something’ you say...was the kid on the verge of death and needed food immediately? It was a grocery store, for heaven’s sake. If the kid ‘had’ to eat something, there was surely something in that store he could eat that would have been safe.
I know people whose children have nut allergies, and they do not rely on total strangers to know what is best for their children. Usually if they are in doubt, they don’t let their child consume a particular food. It’s called common sense and responsibility.
Could they not have waited until they got home to eat? This is a grocery store, where nearly every kind of snack or treat has a warning label on it. As a mother of a child with such a deadly allergy, she should know better. When your child has an allergy that can kill him, you KNOW what is and is not a danger. You read the labels and are familiar with the products that are made in a special facility free of any tree nuts or peanuts, which a grocery store bakery clearly is NOT, and just by a cursory glance at their baked goods, you see the nuts on them. You are VIGILANT because to not be can mean death to your child.
What a horrible, horrible lesson to have learned. She likely cannot come to grips with the fact that HER actions led to death of her baby boy. She needs someone else to be responsible, because the truth is just too awful to contemplate.
My heart breaks for her; she has to live with this. This is such a tragic story.
Oddly enough they’ve found that kids exposed to nuts at a very, very young age are unlikely to develop the allergy or at least will not have a life-threatening reaction.