One 5-year-old's allergy leads to class peanut ban [lunch searches?????]

SF Chronicle ^

[Eva]

I think the poster said five in one kindegarten class. That is way too many.

[Hildy]

I keep hearing about peanuts being banned on airlines, but everytime I fly, I get my little package of peanuts handed to me. It's almost like it's an urban legend.

[Eva]

I reread the post and you were right, five in the school. I still question the diagnosis, since I have never met one child with a peanut allergy, at least not that was ever talked about.

Like I said, I have suffered from allergies all my life. I am one of those people who has a reaction to their own antibodies, I used to be able to write my name on my arm with my fingernail. My kids all have allergies as well, and I am convinced that there is an emotional component to allergies, the bigger deal you make of them, the worse they are.

[DBrow]

For a classroom that is a stretch, you bet. I don't feel like doing a poisson distribution but that would be one rare cluster.

[Eva]

By the way, I would probably comply with a voluntary ban, but never with a compulsory one. I hate to be ordered around and resent any type of phoney authoritarian figure who thinks they know better than I, what I should do.

[DBrow]

You are dermatographic!

Some allergies, there is an emotional aspect- athsma for sure and sometimes hives.

With PA, once you get the stuff in you, it is sort of out of your hands. Fear can actually help because of the adrenaline involved. I usually know I am in trouble a few minutes after eating peanut and must act quickly- the reaction can be quite fast.

I have an uncle that I don't see anymore. He used to think that PA was all hypochondria, and he would sometimes try to prove it to me by doing little experiments on me by giving me peanut. Lots of fun.

I use this resource a lot- www.foodallergy.org, it has lots of good info.

If the child is well-trained to be self reliant, you may never know about the allergy. I have known people for years and never had to tell them, but if we get into a situation where it makes a difference like travelling together or if they want to eat shelled peanuts in front of me, I tell them.

That has been one of the points in the thread- teach the kid to survive on his own rather than strip-search everyone around for peanut brittle.

Everyone in town is going to know all about this kid in the article- hope he never meets my uncle or someone with similar ideas.

[CIB-173RDABN]

I know exactly what you mean. You can't even drink and drive any more. Next they'll say you can't drink a six-pack and shoot the cans in your own back yard or alley. Life sucks.

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You pretty much have it (and yes I know you are being saracastic, but the point is, the do gooders determine something may be harmful, and then make rules for everyone to live by.

PS - I don't drink adult beverages.

[CIB-173RDABN]

"...fine well lock this kid away and not let him have an education, or not offer him what every other American kid is getting. Or we can paty a private tutor to provide this kid with an education your call..."

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The responsibility is his and his family, not society. You do not agree with that, but then I do not agree with your view. So I guess we will leave it at that.

[Fifth Business]

Thanks for being a good sport about my attempt at humor. And you didn't even need a cocktail! By the way, I like your statements on your homepage.

[Ramius]

It doesn't matter. The kid won't last long enough to get a good education anyway. It's tragic, but with a parent that assumes that everyone else the kid will come in contact with will somehow magically know not expose the kid to peanuts... it's over for him.

Everyone in that kid's class must remember every day, and never ever forget to never put a PBJ in the lunchpail. Hundreds of mothers and dads that will never forget even once. Sure, it might work that way in some dreamworld.

But then the new kid comes in... and he doesn't get the message in time...

If this kid is really as mortally allergic as he's made out to be, then send him to public school is a death sentence. Might as well let him handle rattlesnakes all day. Sure he'll get away with it for a while, but it only takes once.

[FITZ]

But perhaps this child is just a little too vulnerable for public school.

That's what it sounds like --- it would be way too risky to send such a 5 year old anywhere in public. If it's life and death for him to have any exposure at all --- his parents are risking his life by not keeping him at home.

[Libertina]

NO, the ONE CHILD can enjoy his lunch at home. The other children will continue to live their lives as they should and eat PB&J at school. If we were to change our lives for the ONE person who had a problem, millions of lives would be disrupted... we would also be called "liberals." Your thinking cap is on backwards. I know a child who is that allergic. He is homeschooled, he and his parents do NOT impose his allergy on others.

[FITZ]

even to cope with the kids who'd put pieces of peanut butter cookie in my lunch food to see what would happen.

Knowing how 5 year olds are, that alone would make me keep the child home --- a small child might not have any understanding about the dangers of a prank he might play. How does peanut butter allergy kill? Couldn't the child carry benadryl at all times and prevent the reaction?

[Gunrunner2]

After reading 373 posts, IMHO yours is the most insightful.

Good on ya.

[FITZ]

People used to just drop dead, and nobody ever figured out why.

How do they drop dead? Is it anaphylactic shock from the release of histamines? Couldn't someone that allergic just carry antihistamines or epinephrine around and use it if needed? My kid was very allergic to ant bites and I just bought one of those inhalers and kept benadryl around and gave it as soon as he was bit to prevent the reactions until he outgrew the allergy.

[packrat35]

You have nailed it. I agree with everything you say here.

[Badray]

" Does that mean, then, that we do not even try to make the child's school environment safe? Lots of children are at risk from being run over by cars. Yet we employ crossing guards and other methods to reduce this risk while the children are on the school property."

Crossing guards are a reasonable measure that safeguards ALL the children, not just one or a few. I believe that the burden for all 'special needs' children belongs on the shoulders of the parents, not the taxpayer. Of course my recommendation would be to separate school and state, then this wouldn't even be an issue.

The problem here, as in so many other situations, is in the socialistic programs run by the state.

[Badray]

I don't believe that this is the best approach for the child. If the problem is that severe, he should be at home and not out in public. If not, then the parents should make the accomodation and not the other kids. It's not the loss of the peanuts. It is about learning to get along in a dangerous world. Banning peanuts in school is a feel good measure that ignores the complexity of the problem and does little to solve it.

[hunter112]

He might pass that on to his kids, you know. Wouldn't that be a shame.

Didn't happen, he never married.

Better to hand him a Milky Way bar and let nature take it's course...

Nature did take its own course, his diabetes was part of a more complicated syndrome that took his life nearly three years ago.

As he and I were adopted, from the same location at different times, at least I don't have to worry about my own kids or my sister's kids coming down with what Jim had. Nobody's saying we should euthanize anybody, just keep the vulnerable isolated for as long as they need it.

[strela]

As a result, school officials have taken extraordinary steps in Pod C, a group of kindergarten classrooms at Valle Verde that share a common central area.

Sounds like a prison ward, doesn't it?