Posted on 03/22/2011 6:52:11 PM PDT by Dallas59
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – Some public school parents in Edgewater, Florida, want a first-grade girl with life-threatening peanut allergies removed from the classroom and home-schooled, rather than deal with special rules to protect her health, a school official said.
"That was one of the suggestions that kept coming forward from parents, to have her home-schooled. But we're required by federal law to provide accommodations. That's just not even an option for us," said Nancy Wait, spokeswoman for the Volusia County School District.
Wait said the 6-year-old's peanut allergy is so severe it is considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Denying peanuts to all the other kids is not a reasonable accomodation. Peanut products are an excellent source of protein and energy. It’s wrong to deny that to all the other kids just because there’s one kid with an allergy.
A kid with that serious of an allergy needs first and foremost to learn how to live and survive in a world that’s just chock full of peanuts. That... and how to work an Epi-Pen. Without those two skills they will die.
“I thought the ADA provided reasonable accommodations?”
I’m not sure that the ADA covers peanut allergies, or at least there are court rulings that say it doesn’t.
It's possible that the processing used in making peanut butter is different today or perhaps the chemicals used in growing peanuts.
This child will never recover from the emotional scars of being forced to endure public school under these circumstances. How much better for her to be schooled at home, or better yet, with others that suffer from life-threatening allergies. They could learn to cope together instead of facing their challenges with those who, although sympathetic, couldn’t possibly understand what they have to endure.
What are they going to do if they discover they have a sniffing dog allergic to peanuts?
Why should everyone suffer ???Home school the Kid, she belongs to them!
I can’t wait till the little fantasy world where we can afford EVERYTHING everyone’s little heart desires implodes, and gets it all over us...
School choice/vouchers would be ideal.
Are the other kids banned from eating peanuts at home too??
How ridiculous will this get?
“... if one of the children was allergic to dogs?”
Interesting point. A friend of my daughter has asthma and she will have an attack due to dog dander. Your point is very valid.
*
Poor kid. I can see having a peanut-free lunch table and banning peanut products from her homeroom. Beyond that, quite apart from the inconvenience to everyone else, she needs to learn to live in a world where there are peanuts. Her future workplace won’t make every employee gargle after lunch.
Aren’t there therapies that can lessen severe allergies by exposing patients to microscopic amounts of the substance over time? While she still wouldn’t be able to eat a peanut, I think there are treatments that could get her to where a stray particle wouldn’t kill her. Anyone know?
This is by no means an authoritative answer to your question, but I can give some information that may be a part. Allergic response is correlated with BMI. the higher the BMI you have the more likely you are to have a response. Thus, you can “develop” allergies, which are really allergies you always had, but only relize after you get heavy. As american are getting heavier, and generally less healthy to boot, I’m sure this is a big part of the problem. I am severly allergic to grass, and mint.
As a kid, grass bothered me, but growing up in the desert it was only a problem when I had to mow the “lawn” (a tiny patch of grass), I’d be sick for days. I normally weigh about 170, but a few years back after a severe accident, I gained almost 25 pounds due to inactivity. For the next year or so, even a mower cutting the lawn outside was enough to send me into a wheezing, hyperventilating death spiral (I’m being dramatic, I know). But after I lost the weight, the grass is still a nuisance, but I’ll be sure to maintain the lower weight from now on (Besides, I didn’t like the other added inconveniences of the extra weight anyway)!
Anyway, I think the rising overweightedness and obesity are heavily (no pun intended), contributing to the problem. Let the kids go out and play!
See my post at #33.
In Vietnam I decided that I had a severe allergy to copper coated lead pills (at least the ones heading my way), so I did all I could to avoid them. I succeeded and never had an “allergic reaction”.
/sarc
If there is something that is life threatening to you then take whatever action necessary to avoid that thing, even something as drastic as (gasp!) home schooling!
“A “reasonable accommodation” would be making sure there was food available for her that did not include peanuts.”
It’s not “reasonable” to be making food available at taxpayers expense in the first place, but “school lunches” have become another entitlement program.
In any case, her parents are the ones that should be making sure that she has food that she’s not allergic to, not making everyone else change their diet.
I home school now & I don't know what my daughter in law will do when the time comes for Matt to go to school. We just do things without peanuts & peanut oil. Matt will not have emotional scars even if he isn't home schooled. He will deal with his allergy like a normal kid would. And I don't think I like your idea of putting all kids who have life threatening allergies together. That right there might scar them.
Peanuts have 16 different kinds of fungus.
the fungus thrives in an acidic environment and nourishes with ingested sugars. Corn has over 20 different kinds of fungus. Shellfish, which are bottom feeders eating rotting corpses and fecal material are loaded with microforms, which can cause an extreme reaction. Put fungus,(candida is a form which travels around the body and is hard to get rid of), bacteria, yeast, or mold(from cheese) in your body, feed these with sugars, (fermentables) or bread, (yeast, dextrose) dairy products,(lactose, sugars) and your body will become a vessel capable of producing weapons of mass destruction. All of this contributes to cancer. Read Dr. Robert Youngs’ book “The PH Miracle” I guarantee a healthy weight loss of 20 lbs.
“I know the allergy is quite real but is there any science explaining why?”
I have a theory that it’s related to infant formula.
IIRC, you actually decided you were allergic to cheap, copper washed steel pills, not lead pills.
;-)
PS Thank you for your defense of America.
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