School parents want girl with peanut allergy sent home

[Chemisse]

ORLANDO, Florida — 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.

To protect the girl, students in her class at Edgewater Elementary School are required to wash their hands before entering the classroom in the morning and after lunch, and rinse out their mouths, Wait said, and a peanut-sniffing dog checked out the school during last week's spring break.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42212235/ns/health-allergies_and_asthma/

Interesting controversy. I don't think this is asking too much, and the parents seemed to have over reacted. But where do you draw the line? What if children had to be searched when they arrived at school? What if they had to take a shower in the school gym before entering the class each day? At what point would the school have to say the rights of the other children outweighed the needs of the allergic child?

I wonder where this child CAN go, if not to school. The city bus, a sports game, roller skating rink . . . It would be impossible to control people's behaviors in these places.

[abelenkpe]

1. No peanut rule at my kids school

for same reason. We just don't send peanuts or peanut butter to school.

They don't make everyone wash their hands though...or I should say more than they already do ;)
It's not that big a deal.

[Vinnie From Indy]

2. peanut sniffing dog?

I wonder how much a peanut sniffing dog handler can make "sweeping" schools to detect the "Al Queda" of the legume world.

[HuckleB]

4. That is a bit much, indeed.

:shrug:

[Vinnie From Indy]

6. I also wonder if this dog can detect filberts, walnuts and other nuts

I wish I had a dog that could sniff out and deliver a good pizza and a few beers right now. I'm hungry!

[HuckleB]

7. That would an awesome dog!

I was once sniffed out as carrying drugs into the US by a dog. I was among six of us, who were detained because of the mutts at work. Not one of us had anything on us, however.

We all went home, albeit 30-45 minutes than we had expected.

[Chemisse]

12. I wonder if they sent him back to drug-sniffing school. That has to be a

major embarrassment for drug officials.

[HuckleB]

13. There were at least three dogs.

I just wonder how good the dogs are, in reality, or if the customs dogs are not actually very well trained, but more of an excuse to do random checks.

It was very odd. And this was pre- 9/11.

[Kennah]

22. Do you have particularly attractive legs?

[Chemisse]

10. LOL - those evil legumes!

Yeah, I have heard of peanut-free schools, and it doesn't seem to be too hard to accomplish in general, but I can't imagine how every trace of peanuts can be kept out (a smear of Snickers on a little kid's jacket, an errant peanut M & M stashed in a lunch bag, etc).

[obxhead]

3. Teaching good hygiene is a bad thing now?

:wtf:

[Maru Kitteh]

23. They were teaching it by wiping the kids faces with bleach. Utterly useless and bad.

Peanut proteins are an allergen, not a pathogen.

[HuckleB]

5. The question that remains unanswered is do the requirements match the actual danger?

:shrug:

[Warpy]

8. I have a real hard time believing anybody is this allergic to peanuts

Smelling it on a kid's breath across the classroom is not going to throw any kid into anaphylactic shock.

Washing their hands after lunch is a good idea, though, just for general reasons. Rinsing every kid's mouth out is a bit much, although if it's combined with postprandial toothbrushing, it might make some sense.

Real peanut allergy that has been confirmed by an allergist can be life threatening. Unfortunately, too many parents aren't going to allergists but "alternative practitioners" to diagnose this stuff and they end up attention seeking over nothing.

One article on the subject: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4318740.stm

[gkhouston]

19. If the parents are asking for these precautions and the school is accommodating them,

they probably have a letter from the allergist stating that such measures are necessary. My daughter is severely allergic to peanuts, but she does have to actually ingest them before anything bad happens. Given how closely her allergist questioned us about her history of peanut exposure, however, I got the impression that it is possible to be sensitive enough to have a reaction to a few inhaled molecules of peanut protein.

[hlthe2b]

9. I'm surprised they aren't expecting her to wear a "bubble suit"

[d_r]

11. you know if it really is life threatenting

if it is really threatening the life of the child, then by all means, do it.

Personally, I don't think that most pre-pubescent children will have deadly reactions to a peanut allergy - the allergic reactions intensity increase as we get older and have more exposures. My understanding is that for children younger than adolescence death is extremely rare, and virtually undocumented (try to find a newspaper story of a child under the age of adolescence dieing from a peanut allergy - you have the whole internet in front of you, try to find one). On the other hand, I'm not the child's pediatrician. I can't diagnose her. If it is really life-threatening then by all means follow the precautions. The child has the right to attend free public education in the least restrictive environment that she can succeed in, and asking other children to make fairly minor accommodations to that is a fine lesson in living in a civil society in which people have different abilities and needs.

I say this coming from a different perspective - both of my children were very small, bordering on failure to thrive when they were infants. Just small kids, below the bottom 3% line on the cdc charts. For both, peanut butter was something they would eat, and they needed that fat and protein. So my view is 180 the other way. But honestly, if it is that serious a medical complication, then it really isn't asking too much for those around you to accommodate a little to support that. The guy quoted in the article comes off sounding like a jerk to me.

[Chemisse]

14. Indeed. I am sure his opinion would be quite different if he had to look

at his own daughter's sad little face and tell her she could not go to school.

That's interesting about the age factor. I wonder if there is a way to gauge the intensity of the response during allergy testing.

When my kids were toddlers, peanut butter on a spoon was one of their favorites snacks!

[HuckleB]

15. The child has every right to go to school.

And necessary accommodations are worthy of our time as a society. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't question those who may err in the supposed name of safety.

Peanut allergy epidemic may be overstated
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/fitness/articles/2006/01/30/peanut_allergy_epidemic_may_be_overstated/

:hi:

[Chemisse]

18. That was really interesting! I wondered about this sudden avalanche

of deadly peanut allergies; I had never even heard of such a thing perhaps 20 years ago. This article suggests that severe reactions are not so common.

[femmocrat]

16. Schools are being asked to make more and more accommodations.

We have children who are blind, hearing-impaired, Down syndrome, in wheelchairs.... you name it.

We currently have a kindergarten student with cystic fibrosis who requires all kinds of special accommodations.

Public schools now mainstream kids who would have been sent to special-needs schools a generation ago. That's just the way it is.

[Orrex]

20. Wouldn't be a problem

If funding were increased to match the need.

[TheMadMonk]

17. Federal law may well require the school district to make accomodations.

But where (or how) does federal law force private citizens (including children) to accomodate a person with whom they might have no connection but a shared teacher and classroom.

What if it's a kid with a suppressed immune system next time? Do we go full aseptic environment and stuff all the other kids in bunny suits and masks?

Do we black out an entire school for one kid allergic to sunlight?

And what happens here when one of those parents jumps up on her high American dander and sends an older kid off to school with a pocket full of peanuts and some instructions. I certainly wouldn't bet against such a thing happening. And certainly not with a child's life.

[semillama]

21. My son has a peanut/tree nut allergy

among others related to food (citrus, dairy, tomatos, egg whites -all of which except the nut allergies he's expected to outgrow).

The hand-washing is reasonable. Mouth-rinsing and peanut-sniffing dogs though? That seems extreme even to me. I eat peanut butter at work and wash my hands, and if it's close to the time I go home, I do rinse out my mouth, however.

But I'd like to see one of these parents who can't be bothered to help out try to tell me I need to home-school my kid to my face.

[SheilaT]

24. If someone is so incredibly allergic

to peanuts that she'd go into shock if someone else ate a peanut butter sandwich, than that's someone who can't possibly go out anywhere in public because lots of people are out there eating peanuts and peanut butter.

I have long considered forcing others to be totally peanut-free is not reasonable.

I have a friend who developed a severe shell-fish allergy around the age of fifty. She has learned to ask careful questions in restaurants, and has simply stopped going to certain categories of restaurants -- mainly Chinese ones -- because she can't trust that they won't use the same utensils used to stir shrimp then to use them to stir her food. When we go out to eat she needs to remind me of her allergy, but she doesn't try to totally control everyone around her.