Mom Demands School Go Peanut-Free For Allergic Child

[unblock]

431. some of the doctors i've spoken with are at the forefront of this research.

i am a parent of a child with a severe peanut/tree nut allergy so i have looked into this.

for starters, we were advised to wait to see if he would simply grow out of it.

second, even if had gotten him into a program as soon as we had the diagnosis, it would still be years before completion of the program, meaning he would be vulnerable in the interim anyway.

third, upon completion of the program, best case scenario (worst case is that you die in the trial) is merely that accidental exposure is less lethal. it's not at all a cure. you still can die from eating a bowl of chili thickened with (surprise!) peanut butter. the hope is that a small, accidental exposure causes a less lethal reaction, giving a greater chance(but not at all a guarantee) that epi/Benadryl/911 will save your life. a large exposure is still likely to be lethal.

fourth, the mass media invariably hypes the promise of new medical treatments and rarely discloses the disappointing aspects. this is no exception. keep in mind that my information comes from doctors who run these clinical trials and have a financial incentive to enroll kids in the program, and they were quite discouraging to us in terms of explaining the limited benefit of this treatment.


bottom line is that while this is promising research and we are continuing to pay attention to this, and probably will enroll mini-unblock in a desensitization program at the appropriate time, a safe environment will ALWAYS remain a requirement for him. life sucks for some people so let's ruin your life so the rest of us can enjoy one particular food that everyone could easily do without is not a reasonable answer.

quite the contrary, more and more businesses and institutions are doing away with peanuts entirely, either removing them from the menu or using alternatives such as sunbutter (from sunflower seeds), as our school cafeteria has done. given the prevalence and lethality of peanut allergies in particular, i think the long term trend is toward peanuts becoming increasingly rare. over the next couple of decades, more and more restaurants and cafeterias will be peanut-free.