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Nut allergies -- a Yuppie invention
Los Angeles Times ^ | 01/09/2009 | Joel Stein

Posted on 01/10/2009 9:19:49 AM PST by Responsibility2nd

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Nuts, anyone?

1 posted on 01/10/2009 9:19:50 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
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To: Responsibility2nd

No thank you. I’m allergic to Yuppie Nuts.


2 posted on 01/10/2009 9:22:17 AM PST by This Just In (Support Christian Homeschoolers)
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To: Responsibility2nd

Aw nuts.


3 posted on 01/10/2009 9:22:29 AM PST by null and void ("Sure, first there's the Ooooos and Ahhhhhs, then there's the running and the screaming.")
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To: This Just In
Yuppie Nuts.

I didn't know they had them. :)

4 posted on 01/10/2009 9:23:46 AM PST by Free State Four
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To: Responsibility2nd
FRom last month....

Warning of nut allergy 'hysteria.' Measures to protect children increasingly absurd

BBC ^ December 10, 2008

Posted on Sunday, December 21, 2008 1:27:20 PM by billorites

A peanut on the floor of a US school bus recently led to evacuation and decontamination for fear it might have affected the 10-year-old passengers.

Such extreme steps to reduce exposure to nuts are not isolated and are fuelling fear and anxiety, reports the British Medical Journal Online.

A UK allergy expert said a similar "epidemic" was present in Britain.

Professor Nicolas Christakis, a professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School, told the BMJ there was "a gross over-reaction to the magnitude of the threat" posed by food allergies, and particularly nut allergies.

In the US, serious allergic reactions to foods cause just 2,000 of more than 30 million hospitalisations a year and comparatively few deaths - 150 a year from all food allergies combined.

In the UK there are around 10 deaths each year from food allergies.

Professor Christakis said the issue was not whether nut allergies existed or whether they could occasionally be serious. Nor was the issue whether reasonable preventative steps should be made for the few children who had documented serious allergies, he argued.

"The issue is what accounts for the extreme responses to nut allergies."

He said the number of US schools declaring themselves to be entirely "nut free" - banning staples like peanut butter, homemade baked goods and any foods without detailed ingredient labels - was rising, despite clear evidence that such restrictions were unnecessary.

"School entrances have signs admonishing visitors to wash their hands before entry to avoid [nut] contamination."

He said these responses were extreme and had many of the hallmarks of mass psychogenic illness (MPI), previously known as epidemic hysteria.

Often seen occurring in small towns, schools and other institutions, outbreaks of MPI involve healthy people in a flow of anxiety, most often triggered by a fear of contamination.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...

5 posted on 01/10/2009 9:24:10 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
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To: Responsibility2nd
And genes certainly don't cause 25% of parents to believe that their kids have food allergies, when 4% do. Yuppiedom does.

very true, but those that have nut and foold allergies can really get sick. As a matter of fact the 21% of frauds are who are causing the scoffing for the 4% that are truly allergic....

6 posted on 01/10/2009 9:25:15 AM PST by Vaquero ( "an armed society is a polite society" Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: Responsibility2nd

Peanuts are not nuts. They are legumes. The parents are the nuts.


7 posted on 01/10/2009 9:26:24 AM PST by DogBarkTree (Sometimes you have to let it go in order to get a Grip.)
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To: Responsibility2nd

this article would make sense if genes were solely responsible for allergy. but it is a little more complicated than that. hygiene, age of exposure, gut flora, antibiotic exposure, all probably play a role. allergies are increasing. but skin testing, and RAST testing are probably over sensitive.


8 posted on 01/10/2009 9:26:40 AM PST by brannon (we are all dying; some of us faster than others)
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To: Free State Four

“I didn’t know they had them. :)”

Yuppie Nuts are quite popular in certain areas of the country. I do believe Berkeley is where they’re produced, as well as all public education institutions. :^)


9 posted on 01/10/2009 9:27:23 AM PST by This Just In (Support Christian Homeschoolers)
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To: Responsibility2nd

I think I see mine there on the upper left....the shriveled ones.


10 posted on 01/10/2009 9:29:02 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: Responsibility2nd

The assault on peanuts was just the beginning of politically correct food nazis.

Today they go after transfats, corn syrup, and everything else.

These are the same people who go after smokers, cologne/perfume users and anything that looks, smells or feel uncomfortable.


11 posted on 01/10/2009 9:29:20 AM PST by Erik Latranyi (Too many conservatives urge retreat when the war of politics doesn't go their way.)
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To: Responsibility2nd
genes don't mutate fast enough to have caused an 18% increase in childhood food allergies between 1997 and 2007

Or a 500% increase since the seventies when I was in elementary school.

12 posted on 01/10/2009 9:29:31 AM PST by Malsua
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To: Responsibility2nd
When I was a kid (I'm 43 now), I don't recall one of my classmates declaring to be allergic to nuts... if a kid forgot his/her lunch the S.O.P. was a peanut butter sandwich and a 1/2 pt. milk.

I guess that's not done anymore.

13 posted on 01/10/2009 9:29:56 AM PST by Trajan88 (www.bullittclub.com)
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To: Responsibility2nd

I’m allergic to yuppies, yippies, hippies, guppies, and muppets. Especially elmo.


14 posted on 01/10/2009 9:31:26 AM PST by mamelukesabre (Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum (If you want peace prepare for war))
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To: Responsibility2nd
these responses were extreme and had many of the hallmarks of mass psychogenic illness (MPI), previously known as epidemic hysteria.

What a coincidence.

I believe I saw something like that on November 4.

15 posted on 01/10/2009 9:36:38 AM PST by Flycatcher (Strong copy for a strong America)
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To: DogBarkTree

Thank you for posting this. You’re quite right...Peanuts are related to “peas”.


16 posted on 01/10/2009 9:38:07 AM PST by Sacajaweau (I'm planting corn...Have to feed my car...)
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To: Responsibility2nd

I like fish sticks.


17 posted on 01/10/2009 9:38:59 AM PST by CindyDawg
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To: Responsibility2nd
Maybe the rise in allergies is due to the rise in awareness as opposed to hysteria.

Although I DO agree about the mass hysteria about the peanuts (It's a peanut - hit the floor!), as a family with food allergies that nearly killed my child - allergy to wheat, misdiagnosed as ulcers, and therefore fed more wheat... I can truly feel the pain!!!!

I think we as a society are becoming more aware of the allergens and are diagnosing them. As a child I was told I just had a nervous stomach because I didn't like school - "now drink your milk or you can't go to recess"...to finding out as an adult my severe stomach pain was caused because of milk allergy/lactose intolerance.

People who have not been there should not judge - severe allergies are real!

18 posted on 01/10/2009 9:39:08 AM PST by HomeschoolMomma (No thanks...I already have a Messiah!)
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To: Gaffer

You said your best one is the size of a pea, but the other one is a little bitty thing?


19 posted on 01/10/2009 9:39:21 AM PST by csmusaret (Congress hasn't got anything right since they declared war on Japan.)
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I am a little confused? I thought California liberals liked ‘nuts’. Wasn’t that what Prop 8 was all about?


20 posted on 01/10/2009 9:39:30 AM PST by WaterBoard (Somewhere a Village is Missing it's Socialist.)
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