Posted on 01/05/2005 5:17:35 AM PST by WestVirginiaRebel
YORKTOWN, Ind.-Savannah Dowling is a typical 8-year-old girl; much of her protein comes from peanut butter sandwiches.
However, if she wants to bring one to Central Indiana's Pleasant View Elementary School, she has to eat it at a special table to accomodate one first grader with a severe allergy. Soon she'll have to take her lunch to an area the school is calling the "peanut gallery" so the one child with the peanut allergy isn't affected.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
On the other hand, my first bet would have been that little Savannah's father (the critical parent) is a single dad who has just found his "cause." Not to knock single parents, but sometimes, some single parents (not all, so don't flame me!) do make an issue out of nothing, and overcompensate just to help alleviate their own guilt, and to make themselves a crusader for their children's rights (whether there's a crusade or not.) I see now, on second reading that he is actually the fiance of the little girl's mother. And there aren't any other complaining parents on record. So is there a big controversy, or is it just one guy who got a hold of a fox news reporter?
Don't understand why post #49 was deleted. Of course, I don't understand why people on this thread have attacked me for stating my opinion either. I also don't understand why you had to post basically the same thing you posted yesterday....which was you implying somehow I'm a bad parent for letting my kid go to school because of all of the "horrors". We see an allergist every week. I trust his opinion on the risks more than I trust someone like you. Thanks.
I share your sentiments....
Don't understand....... Of course, I don't understand........ I also don't understand ......
Yup.
Why waste your time?
I thought the words "peanut gallery" were found to have a racist background a few years back. The school had better not call it that or they might offend someone.
It is serious, and I hope my peanut butter breath doesn’t kill anyone. Will peanut butter be banned in public as smoking is in many places?
I would never stand for my kids being "quarantined". There are some things that can be avoided with little or no harm to the rest of the school.
I have to agree with the majority here, they need to have a table for your child that is "peanut free" and not punish the whole school. You said that you wouldn't stand for your child to be "quarantined", but yet you approve of others being ostracized for having peanut butter?
And to maintain their acquired tolerance, those children should not only be allowed, but encouraged, to eat peanut products on a regular basis, as counter-intuitive as that sounds.
http://www.jewishtimes.com/scripts/edition.pl?now=5/25/1999&SubSectionID=30&ID=4420
Dr. Robert Wood Uncovers New Information About Peanut Allergies
Phila Hoopes Special to the Jewish Times
DECEMBER 31, 2004
For novelist Dan Brown, it was a diabolical murder weapon to dispatch a wayward accomplice in "The Da Vinci Code." For the parents of one in 125 children, by a 2000 study, peanut allergies are a cause for ceaseless vigilance.
Each year, peanut allergies account for nearly 100 deaths and 15,000 visits to emergency rooms, roughly half the number of deaths and ER visits caused by all food allergies combined, according to the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network.
Estimates are that peanut allergies affect approximately 1 to 2 percent of young children and 1.5 million Americans overall. The allergy can be triggered by as little as 1/1,000th of a peanut.
But of the children affected, roughly 20 percent may outgrow the allergy by the time they are 5 or 6 years old, says Dr. Robert Wood, a pediatric allergist at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center. And to maintain their acquired tolerance, those children should not only be allowed, but encouraged, to eat peanut products on a regular basis, as counter-intuitive as that sounds.
Dr. Wood, the study's senior author, and his research team published this finding in the November issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. The recommendation to return peanuts to a formerly allergic child's diet is not made lightly.
It is possible only after the child clearly shows a high degree of tolerance as indicated by three increasingly stringent levels of testing: a blood test in which the child's blood is mixed with a peanut product in a test tube and tested for antibodies; a skin test, in which a small amount of a peanut product is placed on or under the skin and monitored for reactions; and, finally, a lab test in which the child actually ingests a small amount of peanut products and is watched for reactions.
"Ultimately, the only true indicator is to have the child eat the food in a controlled setting," Dr. Wood said of a procedure called a "food challenge."
All possible precautions are taken. If the child scored high in antibodies during the blood test, for example, this final test is not offered. A child with a low score on the blood test, however, moves on to the next two levels of testing.
If the child has outgrown the allergy, the information does not always change a peanut-free way of life. "Some children still decide not to eat peanuts, or their families simply never reintroduce peanuts to their diet," said Dr. Wood.
A major factor in this choice is the fear associated with the allergy, that there might be a risk of recurrence, with more severe reactions.
Adding some weight to that fear is a recent New York study indicating that some patients — between 5 and 10 percent of the study sample — apparently outgrew and then reacquired their peanut allergies.
Dr. Wood says few studies have been able to clearly assess the rate of recurrence because many formerly allergic children tend to avoid eating peanuts. Dr. Wood himself looked at the possibility of recurrence and found it "extremely rare" to get back an allergy that has been outgrown, whether peanuts or another food.
"As we thought about it, however, we realized that the difference between a peanut allergy and, say, a milk allergy, is that even if the child doesn't like milk, it is possible still to eat milk products — ice cream, cheese and so forth — while if the child doesn't want to try peanuts, they probably won't be added to their diet," he said.
Paradoxically, however, the Hopkins study indicated that limiting exposure to peanuts once the ingestion challenge has been passed actually increases the risk of reoccurrence. A child who eats small quantities of peanut products, irregularly, is at higher risk of becoming allergic again than a child who eats larger quantities on a more frequent basis.
"The immune system develops a tolerance," said Dr. Wood. "Eating large amounts of the protein helps the system to remain tolerant."
Thus, he continued, once the allergy is outgrown, it makes sense for the child to eat peanuts on a regular basis. To prevent the risk of reacquiring the allergy, Dr. Wood recommends the child should eat peanut products at least once a month. If not a peanut butter sandwich, then the food item could be shelled peanuts or peanut candy.
But there is still a need for regular monitoring to ensure the child's safety, at least for a year or two after the allergy is outgrown. Parents of a child who is being reintroduced to peanuts in the diet are urged to keep an epinephrine injection with them at all times.
In a related study, Dr. Wood looked at other food allergies. He found that no foods were more or less likely to cause an allergic reaction. For example, reactions to eggs were just as common as they were to peanuts.
Dr. Wood also found that, without a definitive diagnosis from a food challenge, children may unnecessarily be avoiding foods with significant nutritional benefits like milk and eggs.
"We hope this information helps families make a more informed decision," Dr. Wood said of the studies.
I didn't advocate banning anything.
I think the allergy is different for different people. Personally, I have to ingest some portion of a peanut to get a reaction, although rubbing a salted peanut on my skin will raise a rash. The severity of the reaction depends on how much I ingest. Consequently, I am very careful and I have not had a severe reaction in over 20 years.
There is a theory that the mother ingests peanuts during a certain period of pregnancy, thereby creating the allergy in the fetus.
Re post 23. As a sufferer, I agree with you completely.
RE post 33: Same deal with me growing up.
I don't think your PBB will kill anyone.
I have minor allergies to all sorts of things (mostly medicines....probably due to how many times I had to use antibiotics when little so now I break out in minor hives to some of them...it also may be the die used in the pills). I think I may have one minor food allergy, though I am not sure to what, but until it becomes serious, I am not going to stop eating food I like. I am worried it is dairy, so that is why I try to remain in the dark about it.
I think chemicals etc. have a lot to do with allergies, as well as overexposure to stuff.
That is why my dad, who did beekeeping as a hobby when real young, is deadly allergic to bees now, whereas when he first started, they did not bother him at all.
Then they need to stay away from peanuts, and the normal people who enjoy peanuts, don't they? The rest of the world doesn't have a problem - it's not up to the rest of the world to tie itself in knots in fear of the AntiPeanut People.
Stay home. Buy a bubble. I don't care.
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