Should nuts in school be banned for the small % who have "nut allergies"

TheBoyConor

Another thing happening in recent decades with better healthcare is that there is less selective pressure taking individuals with predispositions to severe allergies out of the population and gene pool.

Think about it, back 60 years ago a child with a CF or a "weak chest" or an allergy problem, or a malfunctioning immune system would probably not have survived into adulthood and therefore would not have had any offspring. In recent times improved healthcare has allowed these weaker individuals to live longer and have offspring who in turn inherit the predisposition. And so the incidence of allergies and "frail children" increases.

Healthcare has improved health but it is possible that it has reduced the genetic fitness and resilience of the population by facilitating weaker individuals to live long enough to have children.

I don't mean any of this in a mean way, it is just a theory of how these things might evolve.

Raconteuse

topper75 wrote: »

I'm saying if you are Irish - as in all your forebears lived here going way back, you just simply should not be allergic to nuts, or milk for that matter. Nobody in Southern China is allergic to rice. It's puzzling that such freakish Irish kids exist and it is doubly puzzling that it all happens in just the last decade or two.

I was schooled in the 80s and 90s. In primary 200 kids with me. 600 in secondary. Wider circle of peers out of school in clubs etc. easily another 200. Not one person in those groups (stat. significant sample size of 1000) had any kind of reaction to eating nuts. This is new stuff here. Why?

"Freakish" kids. Huge amount of "i" this and that here.

It's not about you. Although it would be if your child had a nut allergy.

looksee

topper75 wrote: »

I'm saying if you are Irish - as in all your forebears lived here going way back, you just simply should not be allergic to nuts, or milk for that matter. Nobody in Southern China is allergic to rice. It's puzzling that such freakish Irish kids exist and it is doubly puzzling that it all happens in just the last decade or two.

I was schooled in the 80s and 90s. In primary 200 kids with me. 600 in secondary. Wider circle of peers out of school in clubs etc. easily another 200. Not one person in those groups (stat. significant sample size of 1000) had any kind of reaction to eating nuts. This is new stuff here. Why?

First point: why not?

Second point:

Unlike other food allergies, rice allergy is relatively uncommon.[4] It has been reported worldwide but mostly in China, Japan or Korea.[13][14] Because rice is a major food in Asia, people from Asia are exposed to higher allergy risk than people from other areas.[15]

Wikipedia, but see references.

Third point: Most people would probably have similar contacts to you, and not be aware of anyone with nut allergies (bearing in mind that they are mostly just going to carefully avoid nuts, not shout from the rooftops that they are allergic), it does not prove they do not exist.

TheBoyConor

TheBoyConor wrote: »

It's because of the way children are brought up now that we have all these allergies. Kids these days are allergic to loads of things that was unheard of years ago. Nowadays kids are brought up in near sterile environments and their immune system doesn't acclimatise to various compounds and microbes and so becomes hypersensitive when they are exposed, often the hypersensitivity extends to common foods.
Whereas years ago, and when I was small in the 90's, kids were outside running about, growing up on farms and out in fields getting covered in muck and cow****, dust from hay and fields. I never heard of any of my rural friends or family having an allergy. It simply didn't exist in anywhere near the same numbers. And there were no such thing as creches when I was small. It was all a good clean(or not so clean) country upbringing. Plenty exposure to the aforementioned good clean dirt.

Nowadays loads of kids have severe allergies and they nearly all have a common background - non-rural upbringing by stressed parents. They are ferried everywhere and spend a good chunk of their young lives cattle herded into creches and preschools. It's all the environment, the excessive amount of cleaning and disinfection agents and the stressful conditions that kids are raised in nowadays. The muck junk food probably doesn't help either.

My sister has an allergy that results in anaphylaxis and she has to carry an epi pen at all times. She is 40 years old and we grew up in rural Ireland, on a farm for a good amount of that time. There was nothing sterile about our environment. We had about 15 dogs, a pet sheep that spent a huge amount of time indoors with us, as did all the dogs and cats and rabbits. We ran around fields, played in the hay, made muck pies and so on. She also has several other allergies which are less severe.

Assetbacked

The kids can have nuts for breakfast before they leave the house and then after school so it's not a huge deal. What age can kids actually be entrusted to eat nuts anyway without choking?

Presumably nut butter is how most kids would be consuming nuts.

Princess Calla

Princess Calla wrote: »

So you would happily pack nuts into your child's lunchbox when there are literally 100's of alternatives?

If a child dies so be it. It's their fault /parents fault for sending them to school in the first place.

i dunno why youd bother replying if only to make up whatever you want.

seems really pointless.

again: how would you actually go about apportioning blame for an oversight from the parent of another child in a school that leads to a serious incident, given the inevitability of it happening and the knowledge in advance that the child with the allergy was sent into a shared environment with that risk.

and what consequences would you look for

Princess Calla

[Deleted User] wrote: »

i dunno why youd bother replying if only to make up whatever you want.

seems really pointless.

again: how would you actually go about apportioning blame for an oversight from the parent of another child in a school that leads to a serious incident, given the inevitability of it happening and the knowledge in advance that the child with the allergy was sent into a shared environment with that risk.

and what consequences would you look for

How am I making stuff up?

Are there lunchbox alternatives to nuts? Yes.

Is there a risk of someone dying for if they come in contact with nuts and have a nut allergy? Yes.

Yes there is a risk,but the steps to reduce the risk are extremely simple.

An oversight is one thing, but if you continually do it as per the case mentioned earlier it's a d1ck move.

How you apportion blame I don't know, but that's very trivial when a child could be fighting for their life or worse.

copeyhagen

educate together primary schools nuts are banned.

no biggie, majority of kids don't eat nuts anyway.

Montage of Feck

Raconteuse wrote: »

Where is your evidence for this? And "opinion" doesn't count. It's either the case or it isn't.

Only the 90s? Thought you were gonna say 60s or 70s. It's around the 90s that nut allergies became recognised.

Hayfever affected and affects rural kids.

This "back in mah day" Monty Python Four Yorkshiremen stuff from people in their 20s/early 30s is hilarious.

People were saying kids were mollycoddled in the 90s too.

Something is going on to cause the increase, as well there a strong correlation between environmental factors and allergies, although the specific factors are not well proven.

topper75

Raconteuse wrote: »

"Freakish" kids. Huge amount of "i" this and that here.

It's not about you. Although it would be if your child had a nut allergy.

I'm not looking for answers to explain me - you are right it is not about me.

I'm genuinely trying to figure out what the deal is with these kids.

A few people have tried to offer explanations here. Can you help me in that regard? Has science any explanation about how this afflictions seemingly just dropped out of the sky for a single generation on an island where consumption of nuts and fruits were a way of life for thousands of years? It makes no sense.

Cienciano

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

Well, that and the fact the jobsworth chemist refused to handover an epi-pen that would have saved her life.

The jobsworth chemist was 100% right. If you worked in a chemist on O'Connell Street in Dublin and handed out prescription drugs to everyone who asked, you'd end up in jail within the week.

cnocbui wrote: »

It's not a case of can't. You are putting strict adherence to a rule on an ethical plane above saving a life. No Chemist is going to be prosecuted for ignoring a rule and saving a child's life.

Nice victim blaming there.

The victim is the child, no one blames her. The person at fault is the mother. It's an extremely sad case. I can't imagine how painful it is to watch your child die like that. But of course it was completely unnecessary if your child has such a bad allergy to nuts, it's your responsibility to make sure you have an epipen and you do not go to Chinese restaurants. I don't mean you look for signs to see if a dish is nut free, you just don't go to them, simple as that.

blueshade

I'm not a fan of the nanny state but a bit of common sense with this kind of thing doesn't go amiss. Not allowing peanuts in school isn't some sort of deprivation of human rights. Apart from anything else there are better things kids could be eating anyway.

Cienciano

SusieBlue wrote: »

The attitude here seems to be that banning nuts is some sort of mollycoddling maneuver done by helicopter over-zealous parents.

It's such a small sacrifice, it's banning something that 95% of people don't do and for the other 5% to change it's absolutely effortless. And the irony is, it's the people that ignore the rule that are mollycoddling their kids.

"I don't care what the rules in the school are, if my little Jimmy wants Nutella/peanut butter for lunch, he gets it".


As for the people that somehow think it's some sort of a fake illness because you never heard about it when you were a kid, you're an idiot. It's as dumb as saying "Back when I was small we didn't have children's car seats and I don't remember anyone dying".
For some it'll take seeing someone having an allergic reaction in a restaurant or in public to change your mind.

Antares35

In my opinion, one child's right not to suffer a potentially fatal reaction to peanuts trumps another child's right to enjoy them. As another poster said, I wouldn't send my child to school with nuts anyway in case they choke on them running in the playground etc.

I also think all schools should have a defibrillator and epi-pen as standard.

khalessi

Antares35 wrote: »

In my opinion, one child's right not to suffer a potentially fatal reaction to peanuts trumps another child's right to enjoy them. As another poster said, I wouldn't send my child to school with nuts anyway in case they choke on them running in the playground etc.

I also think all schools should have a defibrillator and epi-pen as standard.

Each child provides two epi-pens to the school, one for the classroom and one kept in reception/office. Most schools have defibs now and staff trained in how to use them

c.p.w.g.w

Seems to be a massive amount of confusion about but allergies.

Is it

All nuts, groundnuts, peanut...

Treppen

Alexandria Quick Doughnut wrote: »

I've got a surprise for you... The school isn't nut free.

What, my school?

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Cienciano wrote: »

The jobsworth chemist was 100% right. If you worked in a chemist on O'Connell Street in Dublin and handed out prescription drugs to everyone who asked, you'd end up in jail within the week.


The victim is the child, no one blames her. The person at fault is the mother. It's an extremely sad case. I can't imagine how painful it is to watch your child die like that. But of course it was completely unnecessary if your child has such a bad allergy to nuts, it's your responsibility to make sure you have an epipen and you do not go to Chinese restaurants. I don't mean you look for signs to see if a dish is nut free, you just don't go to them, simple as that.

In the midst of an emergency situation, who is looking to assign fault though? In any emergency situation I’ve unfortunately been witness to, it’s all hands on deck. Who’s fault it is doesn’t matter in the moment, the only thing that matters is trying to save a life. It wasn’t the girl’s fault her mother messed up. And mere yards away was something that could have saved this child’s life. That’s crazy to me. Focusing on the technicalities is spectacularly missing the point.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

topper75 wrote: »

I'm saying if you are Irish - as in all your forebears lived here going way back, you just simply should not be allergic to nuts, or milk for that matter. Nobody in Southern China is allergic to rice. It's puzzling that such freakish Irish kids exist and it is doubly puzzling that it all happens in just the last decade or two.

I was schooled in the 80s and 90s. In primary 200 kids with me. 600 in secondary. Wider circle of peers out of school in clubs etc. easily another 200. Not one person in those groups (stat. significant sample size of 1000) had any kind of reaction to eating nuts. This is new stuff here. Why?

How do you know that? I went to school with hundreds of people. I couldn’t definitively tell you that nobody I went to school with ever had a severe allergic reaction. We were only in school for 30-40 hours a week. Anyone that had one outside of school might not broadcast it.

v638sg7k1a92bx

SusieBlue wrote: »

Your ignorance is absolutely astounding.
People die horrible, terrifying deaths every day from anaphylactic shock.

I’ve seen someone go through it and the only thing I can liken it to is watching someone suffocate in plain sight, you can’t help them, they can’t help themselves, it’s so scary.
And the more they panic the less they can breathe and the faster they’ll black out and potentially die.

Maybe educate yourself on how serious and life threatening conditions like this are before throwing about such off hand assumptions about their severity.
So disappointing to see and such a dangerous attitude.

Save the phoney outrage for your other threads. It is a simple statement of fact that more people die from car accidents that from anaphylactic shock.

iamwhoiam

Alexandria Quick Doughnut wrote: »

Save the phoney outrage for your other threads. It is a simple statement of fact that more people die from car accidents that from anaphylactic shock.

And your points ???

v638sg7k1a92bx

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

Those circumstances could be death. Damn straight those parents should bulldoze. Who cares if it’s a rare condition if it’s deadly? Does the rareness offset the high risk of fatality? What’s the relevance?

So why would you send them to school if it's so dangerous?

v638sg7k1a92bx

Smart Bug wrote: »

Thanks for the share. I’ve had 3 this year, peanuts, cashews and coriander (of all ****ing things). 39yo & the closest I came to allergic reactions before this year was mild hayfever (which is now chronic).

The mass stupidity, brutish ignorance and lack of basic empathy of some of the posters on here should astonish me, but sadly doesn’t anymore.

Ignorance about what exactly? The fact that you want parents, schools and children to adapt to your circumstances and if anybody questions the reasons why, you have the gall to call them ignorant and brutish.
"Everybody has to adapt to my child and if you don't do it then you're ignorant"

Who exactly is entitled on this thread?

Princess Calla

Princess Calla wrote: »

How am I making stuff up?

Are there lunchbox alternatives to nuts? Yes.

Is there a risk of someone dying for if they come in contact with nuts and have a nut allergy? Yes.

Yes there is a risk,but the steps to reduce the risk are extremely simple.

An oversight is one thing, but if you continually do it as per the case mentioned earlier it's a d1ck move.

How you apportion blame I don't know, but that's very trivial when a child could be fighting for their life or worse.

you keep telling me im flinging kids into schools with lunchboxes full of nuts to try to kill other kids. for the record i am not doing this and im asking you to stop telling me what you imagine about me. its very boring.

you should imo stop with the hysterics and the projection and answer the very real question arising as a result of your statements.

you think sending kids with dangerous allergies into a school environment is a good thing

you think that everyone else is responsible 100% for ensuring that the school policy of no nuts isnt breached.

you think that the other parents should be held accountable in the event of an incident

this is all on record in this thread.

im asking you what consequences you would like to see befall the parent of another child who overlooks or makes a mistake in packing their own childs lunch, and this results in a child being harmed.

simple question

iamwhoiam

Alexandria Quick Doughnut wrote: »

Ignorance about what exactly? The fact that you want parents, schools and children to adapt to your circumstances and if anybody questions the reasons why, you have the gall to call them ignorant and brutish.
"Everybody has to adapt to my child and if you don't do it then you're ignorant"

Who exactly is entitled on this thread?

Your posts remind me of a toddler . They too seek attention when they get none even if its negative

v638sg7k1a92bx

iamwhoiam wrote: »

And your points ???

Because another poster said in a different post that there are ongoing efforts to stop car accidents and that this was comparable to the number of people being killed on the roads. I pointed out that much more people are killed in car accidents and somehow I'm ignorant of the facts.

khalessi

Alexandria Quick Doughnut wrote: »

So why would you send them to school if it's so dangerous?

Because legally they have to be there and it is a small thing for a school to accommodate a ban on peanuts. the kids need to learn and to socialise

ceadaoin.

Alexandria Quick Doughnut wrote: »

Save the phoney outrage for your other threads. It is a simple statement of fact that more people die from car accidents that from anaphylactic shock.

Are you also outraged that you have to refrain from driving on footpaths and through playing fields in order to minimize the risk of running someone over?

If someone at school has a potentially lethal allergy then refraining from bringing in that allergen is to minimize the risk of them dying. It really shouldn't be a great hardship to you. Just like how you stick to the roads when driving. If it is then you have issues

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

In the midst of an emergency situation, who is looking to assign fault though?

you are

to a chemist, doing their job, in a situation they did not create, could not verify and could not have anticipated.

SusieBlue

Alexandria Quick Doughnut wrote: »

Save the phoney outrage for your other threads. It is a simple statement of fact that more people die from car accidents that from anaphylactic shock.

And your point is? So what? Tell that to the people who have lost relatives to anaphylactic shock. I'm sure they'll be delighted and comforted to hear that more people die in car crashes.

Technically, more people die from cancer than strokes.
That doesn't lessen the significance of the consequences a stroke would have on a person or their family.
By your warped logic, people who have had strokes shouldn't be helped or medically assisted because "sure more people die of cancer".

You are the biggest, most oversensitive drama queen ever if you think not being able to eat nuts for the 5.5hr long school day is your biggest hardship.
Get over yourself and think about the bigger picture.