Is The Peanut Allergy Scare Overblown?
Over at the new SuperEco, Alex Fayle wonders if the increase in peanut allergies and the resulting peanut bans in schools are a lot of hooey.
Fayle cites stats that show the increase in peanut allergies is a North American thing. He says that in Spain, where I guess he resides, “no one ever talks about peanut or other nut allergies.” Nuts and nutty spreads are consumed at a much lower rate of course, but when Fayle asks parents about the topic, “they look at me blankly then say that it’s the responsibility of the parents to manage their child’s allergies.”
This jives with my own (admittedly limited) experience. I know someone who returned to the States after living in Europe and giving birth there, and they told me a story about visiting the doctor and asking about allergies. The doctor just shrugged and said, “Well, if you see symptoms, call me.” Basically, no big deal, just see what happens. Both of these anecdotes remind me of a Chris Rock routine
Thank you..for share your story…..I’m also impressed by the responses here, especially since the initial article takes a somewhat anti-allergy precaution stance
As a mother with allergies and a former child researcher, I’m also very interested in allergies. Harvard researcher Nicholas Christakis just wrote an excellent piece (http://christakis.med.harvard.edu/pdfs/BMJ_081213_Nuts.pdf)in the British Medical Journal speculating on the hysteria over peanut allergies – and its hidden consequences. A recent study also found fewer peanut allergies in Jewish chidlren growing up in Israeli than British (the latter where mothers are told not to give kids peanuts until 3 or so.) Here’s the reference (http://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(08)01698-9/abstract). And of course there a growing concern that early exposure, rather, the lack thereof, may be partially responisble for the rise in peanut allergies. But it will most likely be another decade before we have solid answers to this one…
We just diagnosed my daughter with a peanut allergy…her lips and tongue swell from eating something with even TRACE amounts due to cross-contamination, and each exposure/reaction increases in severity. We do avoid foods with peanuts and carry an epi-pen, but she is only 3 and doesn’t know how to protect herself. When she is in school, I’m not there to make sure a kid with sticky peanut butter fingers doesn’t touch her on the face, KWIM? Peanut allergies aren’t something to screw around with.
@botanist: you know, it’s funny, I saw that too when I was Googling to find the Chris Rock quote. Thanks for bringing it up.
re: other comments – I think (and I’m not necessarily correct) that part of the problem could be that there are people with children who were either misdiagnosed with peanut allergies (I’d never heard of that but it seems like a possibility) or don’t have allergies that are as severe as some of the ones described above. If a kid can get hives from being on the bus with a bus driver who touched peanut butter that morning? Yeah, that’s pretty severe.
I know it is not really relevant but most adult Africans do have lactose intolerance. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactose_intolerance#History_of_genetic_prevalence)
Laure68, the kind of toxins Bean’s Mom is talking about is peanuts, I guess. The article clearly states, that in Spain they do not eat so much nuts. As you know, the more someone is exposed to an allergen, the more chances he would get that allergy. I.e. people who work with mice very often develop an allergy to them.
I have no problem changing my habits (or my son’s) to prevent someone with an allergy from having a reaction. I think the real issue is that there is evidence that peanut allergies are being over-diagnosed. I don’t care about the effect on me, but I do care about all these children that have to modify their lives to such an extreme and do not actually have an allergy.
Bean’s Mom – what kind of toxins would we be exposed to that they are not exposed to in Spain? Spain (and most of western Europe) have very similar lifestyles as we do. Their lives are also filled with toxins. They have the same kinds of plastics, GMO’s, etc. that we do.
Also, another question is – are we spending so much time worrying about peanut allergies, where very few people die each year, and not spending enough time worrying about things that are more likely to harm our children? It is like the person I know who gave up her Nalgene bottle but still smokes a pack of cigarettes a day.
Why is finding that peanut allergies are more common in the US than Spain an indication that most complaints of peanut allergies are “hooey?” Could it be that here in the US we are exposed to some particular environmental toxin that is not in Spain that is making our children more vulnerable to peanut allergies?
My daughter has a peanut allergy and the issue isn’t just with the actual ingestion of the nut. She actually gets hives from touching everyday items that have been also touched by someone someone who has eaten peanut butter. For example, the monkey bars, pencils, classroom instruments. The school seats my daughter at a special “nut free” table at lunch to avoid contact. (Their idea, not mine) My brother has a peanut allergy as well and I could not even touch him after eating peanuts without causing him to break out. Granted, the hives would not kill her, but it’s still a reaction. She also has difficulty with the odor of peanut. Even that can cause respiratory distress. We have had accidentally given her peanut products and the reaction is immediate and life-threatening. One of those items was a candy she got at school. Another time was from a chinese restaurant that had nuts served along with their buffet (cross-contamination).
As a teacher, I see firsthand the “allergies” to some really weird stuff that parents claim their children have. Of course, many of these are not official an official diagnosis and are probably not truly and allergy. But as a parent of an allergic child, I resent the fact that people do not take this particular allergy seriously. It is a big deal to our family and I get very tired of having to watch every second what goes into her mouth.
I wonder, too, about how the new crop of very severe allergies will affect our kids as they get older. Like Bluestar said: what happens when they go to college? I’m fortunate that my child doesn’t have food allergies, but my heart breaks for parents of those children who are hospitalized because of secondhand exposure to nuts.
Lisaloo, I think if my 2.5 year old were in daycare with your son, I would absolutely understand (and not be annoyed) by extreme restrictions, for the very reasons you mention- toddlers drool and touch and generally spread the love around, without the words to say, “Hey, really allergic over here!” I think it is the case where there is no person with a diagnosed allergy around, but the institution bans peanuts or whatever “just in case” that tend to grate, at least for me. And then you also get the claimed allergies, like diera’s friend, which just sort of make things more annoying for everyone- trying to separate out “I just don’t like that” from “I could seriously die from that” gets tiresome. In your case, I absolutely would have no problem following whatever guidelines necessary to keep your boy safe.
And Sabrina, I’m also impressed by the responses here, especially since the initial article takes a somewhat anti-allergy precaution stance. Mostly these kinds of postings are polarizing, leaving no room for discussion on what are appropriate restrictions, how long should they be in place, etc. I really appreciate yours and Lisaloo’s (and everyone else’s) interesting comments on this. I haven’t come up against it in any substantial way yet in my own life, but I’m sure I will.
My little guy just turned 2 and we found out he is severely allergic to peanuts when he was 20 months. I know that this is a pain in the proverbial butt for folks, but my child could die if another toddler with residue from a peanutty snack wandered into the play area and touched a toy that my child touches, or if they breathe on him, or kiss him, whatever kind of messy scenario that is absolutely normal for young children to engage in. My child cannot speak for himself, he cannot monitor what he comes into contact with and he is absolutely dependant on me and other competent adults around him to protect and care for him. I carry an epipen, but he’s too small at present and the allergist says “what we really want is for him to not be exposed to it – then he might outgrow it. If he is exposed, it will just become more severe”. That is the point about anaphylaxis – exposure is not only deadly, it makes the situation worse. I am really sorry that this is an inconvenience for you, but ask yourself, what if it were my child??
I’m really impressed with the collection of well thought out replies here. As the mother of two very severely allergic children (one to peanuts, one to milk products)it really irks me when people are outright rude about keeping dangerous food from my kids when I am not there to protect/supervise/teach them. At the same time I really think things *can* be taken too far. I believe limiting eating in classrooms, having segregated tables for severely allergic children, and possibly banning certain foods from specific classrooms (where the allergic child is), plus enforcing washing hands is good enough in the majority of cases. I also believe restrictions should be lifted after elementary school. If your child has a life threatening condition, as mine do, they are forced to learna bout it and deal with it from a young age. If my middle schooler cannot accurately read a product package and decide if it is safe to eat, I have failed my children.
I have no peanut-allergic children and thus no particular dog in this fight but although I’m sure allergies are overblown and over-diagnosed (I personally have a friend who claims an allergy to fish when in fact he just doesn’t like it, which bugs the crap out of me), for people who genuinely are allergic I’m not sure that “taking responsibility” is all that easy if society doesn’t help. How is a parent supposed to take responsibility for a child’s allergy when he/she is away at school? I do think it’s pretty hard to teach children, especially young ones, to stay away from a danger if it’s disguised as an attractive food that all their friends are eating. I think blanket bans in the absence of a child who has a serious problem are overblown, but when there’s a medically verified allergy in the class I think it’s reasonable.
I used to think the allergy panic was basically a kind of hysteria. I know some kids are seriously allergic, but that’s always been the case. Recently, though, I’ve spoken to a number of serious allergy researchers who say there really does seem to be an increase in allergies. Now I’m not sure what I think.
Oh, also we need to remember what a litigious society the US is. In Spain they say it is the parents’ responsibility. Here, we are always looking for someone to sue. This may be why doctors over diagnose peanut allergies – they would rather do this than risk missing one person and then getting sued.
A woman I work with has an eight year old son who is highly allergic to peanuts. Recently he had two reactions in a week and they couldn’t figure out what had caused them (he goes to some school for kids with bad food allergies where said foods are not allowed anywhere near the school and the kids have to wash their hands before entering the classroom). Finally they traced it to the new bus driver. Said bus driver has a boyfriend she lives with who has peanut butter on his toast every morning. Apparently when putting the dishes in the sink, some must get on her hands and when she helps the kids up the bus steps she sometimes reaches out a hand for them to hold. That minimal contact was enough to send the kid to the hospital twice before they figured it all out and asked the woman to just wash her hands before coming in to work.
I understand his case is extreme, but all I could think was god, that really, really sucks for the kid but also – and I’m sorry, I know this is awful – I was thinking and how irritating for the people around him. I mean it’s only so long he can go to a special school for this, right? What about college? I just…I don’t even know what to make of it, but as someone who is pregnant with her first baby, I really hope our kid doesn’t wind up with a peanut allergy because I gotta tell you, we love the things!
The problem is the screening test for peanut allergies has a very high false positive rate, but often doctors tell patients when the test positive that they have an allergy. They really need to do a more stringent challenge test. I can’t really tell you why this does not happen.
When someone actually has a peanut allergy it can be very serious, but it is unfortunate that we are making all of these children limit their lives so much when so many of them are not actually allergic.
I generally would agree with your sentiment in this regard. However, there is the larger problem that schools are not allowed to give kids (mostly) harmless medications like benadryl. Which means if a kid ended up being allergic, the school would have to call 911 andor the kids parents. This did happen to a friend of mine. He did not know his son had a peanut allergy until he had a reaction in school one day and started swelling up real bad. I believe the son was breathing ok though, so they waited for my friend to pick up some benadryl and get there to give it to his son.
Another problem is that we may be able to tell our kids to stay away from peanut butter, but certain pressures at school could cause them to disobey. Or something as simple as not knowing a certain food has peanuts in it. This would be especially true with the younger kids.
So in this case, I think a wholesale ban on peanut products in school may be appropriate. Again, at least at the elementary grade level.