If one student is severely allergic to peanuts, do you think it's reasonable for the school to completely ban it?

There are ways to mitigate it, but the school’s response is certainly a normal and reasonable one.

Consider the alternative. They allow nuts in the school. The allergic kid is exposed to some dust and has an allergic reaction. The kid goes to the hospital and dies, because the school KNEW of the problem, COULD HAVE addressed it, and didn’t.

Peanuts are not a necessity.

This question is really hard for me. My first reaction is that banning any food from an entire school for a single child is overkill and that child’s parents, school nurse, cafeteria workers, and teacher need to help keep this child safe and healthy without taking such drastic measures. I have seen for instance peanut or dairy free tables and areas in certain schools. Of course if any of my kids’ schools had rules against bringing any food, I would follow them completely.

On the other hand, I don’t have a child with life threatening food allergies and as a parent I could very easily see myself believing that nothing is too over the top to keep my kid alive.

The one thing to consider is that banning a food from the school might create a false sense of security for the parents and child. They might send the kid off to school thinking they never have anything to worry about and it is ok to let their guard down which could cause problems if not all parents and kids are as diligent as they should be. A single strictly enforced, “peanut free zone” for instance might keep the student and staff more vigilant.

Its reasonable. One time at work, I ate a packet of peanuts at my desk. Three days later a colleague (who at the time had not told anyone he was allergic to peanuts) ended up in intensive care because he touched my keyboard. Peanuts were banned from the office until he left.

If it’s a life-threatening allergy they either need to ban the peanuts or the kid. And peanuts seems more fair to me.

Here’s the worst case scenario, one dead kid.
.
And the school knew he/she was allergic.

If it’s a deadly allergy, I don’t think it’s going too far, even if the U.S. were not an extremely litigious society.
I wonder if people with life-threatening allergies are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Does anyone know?

It is reasonable and a small courtesy to the family and student.
Believe it. I doubt they are faking their child’s condition. No family wants to draw attention to their child for such an issue.

I have a tragic anecdotal incident that occurred here at a large company. A coop student was in the cafeteria and ordered the apple betty dessert. She took a forkful of the dessert and said “Oh no!” She died. Tragic.

I think it’s ridiculous.

I realize that it may mean the life of a child, and that would be a tragedy. There are lots of tragedies.

A ban on peanuts, unless it’s rigorously enforced (better than we enforce gun bans at schools, for example) is not going to be effective. Furthermore, it makes all of the parents of all of the other children somehow responsible for the illness / affliction of someone else’s child.

It would be far better for schools to announce that “this is a problem for some children at the school” (without naming the child or children) and request that parents aid in policing their own children’s snacks and trading of food items so as not to endanger the affected children. But I would not insist that parents of all other school children (and grandparents, other relatives and others who may from time to time pack a lunch for some other child) responsible for ensuring that all ingredients in all food items are free from any taint of peanut. Better and more effective by far to request and enlist aid than to demand it.

In addition, schools should definitely train their medical staff (and have medical staff available) to administer anti-allergens as needed on an emergency basis, and they should train their teachers to look out for the particular individuals (who must be made known to the teachers – all of the teachers) at risk, and to prevent them from sharing food brought by others who should not be expected to be in compliance.

If the child is so delicate that he or she needs to live in a bubble to survive, then the bubble has to be provided “by others”. And I don’t mean “by taxpayers”, either. It may seem like a hard attitude, but we can’t save all of the children from everything in the world that may harm or kill them. That’s just too bad, but it’s reality.

I think more kids drown annually at school swimming pools than die from peanut allergies. Definitely more kids are at risk traveling through unsafe neighborhoods just to get to and from school every day. These are things that can and should be addressed better than they are, but of course, these aren’t so simple as “banning water” or “banning crime in neighborhoods”.

Evaluation of risk, people. Evaluation of risk.

The more I see of public school policies in the USA these days the more and more clear it becomes to me why we’re becoming so stupid.

To not ban the peanuts = dead kid and giant lawsuit and bad publicity.

What’s an easier route to take?

I think it’s reasonable.

Why? Well, if the risk is that some kid could get very ill and die, and the one thing that could greatly reduce this risk is for the school to ban peanut butter, then I don’t think it’s too much to ask. We’re not banning kids from bringing water to school. We’re not banning them from bringing pencils to school. There is nothing about peanut butter that removing it from a school will result in unnecessary suffering or a sub-par learning experience.

So, say I am the parent of a kid and I send him to school that has banned peanuts. How does that improve my life? It will greatly ease my mind and I won’t have to worry that my kid won’t die today because he is trying to get an education. It will improve the life of the kid, who will have a huge reduction in the risk to his health and life.

Now, what do the other kids and families have to give up? They have to not give their kids peanut butter. That’s it. Right? Am I missing something? Is this one of those cases where the convenience of not having to get more creative with lunches is so important to people that they feel it’s ok to risk the life of a child or play victim if asked to give up this convenience?

Can people with severe peanut allergies be triggered by food that has been in contact with peanuts? If that is the case, such a ban would be impossible to enforce. I see on a lot of labels that food “was processed on equipment that also processes peanuts,” or something similar.

relevant?

@downtide ‘s example is exactly why it’s reasonable. A kid eats his pb&j and doesn’t wash his hands. He plays on the same playground equipment with allergic kid who doesn’t know that dirty boy left peanut butter from his fingers on the monkey bars. Dead or very sick kid results.

I think that is carrying accommodation too far. I think someone that severely allergic should not go about in public.

@marinelife , that’s what they used to say about people with Down Syndrome, and people in wheelchairs.

@Judi do you have a loved one with severe food allergies? I am only asking because I sense intense passion here and I am curious to hear from someone who lives with this issue.

When my middle son was in pre-school there was a boy who had severe allergies to dairy and peanut among other things. The school also had a student with very serious Celiac’s disease. Since parents provided snacks at this school, we were to avoid anything with certain ingredients on our snack day and kept the snack are peanut and dairy free. The mom (it was a parent participation program), the teachers and the parents working each day made sure that the snack area stayed clear and kids were not eating anywhere else in the room. The teacher also had an epi-pen and was trained to use it.

I think in situations such as this parents are going to be receptive to helping keep a child out of danger. If the school comes from a place of trying to solicit the help of parents rather that instituting school wide sweeping rules, they might be more successful in keeping the child safe.

Freedom’s great, but not all freedoms are equal. In the hierarchy of freedoms, my freedom to eat peanuts anywhere I like is well down below another’s right to live.

As Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”

It seems like banning it for the kids in his class would be enough. If the child goes anywhere in public they run the risk of peanut dust or residue being around. The child needs to be extra careful about not touching his face with his hands, things like that. If my child went to that school I wouldn’t have any problem with the ban, because I am not a big peanut butter or peanut person. So, no great inconvenience from a practical standpoint for me and my imaginery children. Unless they are going to forbid chocolate made on machines that also handle peanuts. Now that would be a big deal.

@Judi The two conditions that you named do not cause alterations in the food intake and behavior of others in order to accommodate them. Also: where does it stop? Should milk not be served in schools because some students are lactose intolerant?

@marinelife: I have not heard of severe lactose intolerance to the point of death, like there is with children (or adults) who are allergic to peanuts to the point of death.

I think part of the issue with nuts is that we touch them with our hands, and the dust can become airborne. Milk, we don’t touch with our hands and it’s not dusty.

At my middle school, there was a separate table set aside for people with a nut allergy. It was like getting banished for having an allergy.
@bookish1 For some people, the allergy is airborne, like what @jca said. This is what brings up the problem for me: the fact that it is more than just ingesting. But I am pretty sure that not everyone is like that. I know firsthand someone who said that they can smell peanuts and touch them and everything but couldn’t ingest them. Banning peanuts because of a small percentage of the population isn’t fair.

@SuperMouse , my grandson is allergic to eggs and corn but I wasn’t even thinking about him. It just pisses me off when someone says that someone with a disability needs to stay locked away in a bubble. I have a passion for defending the underdog. That’s probably the “passion” you’re sensing.

@marinelife , we have altered entire buildings to accommodate wheelchairs and have changed our entire approach to education to accommodate and mainstream people with intellectual disabilities. When someone’s life is at stake it’s not unreasonable to skip the pb&j.

Thanks everyone for your input!

What many apparently fail to realize is that a full “ban on peanuts” goes far, far beyond “no peanut butter and jelly”. Yes, “no peanut butter” would be a pretty reasonable accommodation. “No peanuts or peanut products” goes far beyond that. Not at all reasonable.

Unfortunately for the afflicted child and family – and I do have compassion for people, despite my hard line on the topic – if the child’s health is so fragile that “any exposure” to peanuts and peanut products is likely to bring on death, then that child doesn’t belong in a public school system. (And that child probably won’t long survive outside of a tightly controlled home environment.)

@CWOTUS Don’t you think the main source of peanuts in a school is peanut butter? How often do kids eat peanuts at school?

@CWOTUS: My daughter’s school is peanut free and I’m sure there are kids that go there who have survived so far, despite the fact that it’s a public school.

@JLeslie spend some time reading ingredient labels and you might be amazed at the amount of processed foods that contain peanuts, peanut oil (or have been processed or cooked in peanut oil). If I recall correctly, I think I may have once seen a reference to peanut flour, and I’m sure that peanut shells are used in some common product somewhere, though I can’t think offhand where that is.

@CWOTUS Oh, I know. I wonder if they are that strict in the school? I really don’t see parents reading all the packages.

@JLeslie I think part of the problem with a school-wide ban of peanut products is the fact that it is impossible for the school to police things like processed foods that are cooked in peanut oil. That is why I think it necessarily has to be primarily the allergic student and that student’s parents who do the monitoring.

The food allergic kids I have known were taught – even as young toddlers – to avoid foods in packages that do not come from mom or dad or someone else they know to be completely familiar with their dietary restrictions. I think this type of approach will lead to an empowered and ultimately safer child.

@SuperMouse I think all peanut allergy kids are taught that. I gave out candy in a nursery school and one boy got upset he couldn’t have any candy. He had a peanut allergy. I had already considered that and had candy for him.

Do you think parents in the school would make sure their children bring peanut free food every day? I don’t see it happening. But, if the policy of the school is no peanut then maybe legally the school has protected themselves.

@Judi Yes, it is if that’s the only thing I have to eat at home.

I just think that if a whole school bans it, then what is that person going to do for the rest of his/her life? Will his/her work ban it? Is the world going to ban it? It’s completely inevitable.

No, I think it’s totally unreasonable. How is a school going to enforce a ban on peanut products, without demanding that every parent start checking every damned ingredient of the things they send to school with their kids?

Do you know how many products say “made in a factory where peanuts are processed”??? I, for one, would be fucking pissed if our school tried to completely ban nuts. I refuse to alter the diet of my own children for someone else. I’m sorry, but it’s not my responsibility to avoid triggering someone else’s allergy.

What if my kids have peanut butter toast for breakfast and forget to wash their hands before getting on the bus? Sorry, no. If your kid has an allergy that severe, then that’s on you, not all the other parents. It sounds harsh, but that’s life.

This sort of “We should be more accommodating” BS is a mirror image of our downfall as a society, and why we have so many people with entitlement issues. “Oh here, I know it’s nobody else’s problem but yours, but let us adjust our way of life to suit you.”

I just checked, and severe food allergies are considered a disability according to the ADA.

@Judi, there is a huge difference between adding a ramp in addition to stairs or trying to support all students in a least restrictive environment and asking every single parent to check the ingredients of every single food their kid might potentially take to school. As I’ve said, I would follow the rules the best I could if this was the case at my kids’ school, but where does personal and parental responsibility come into play? There is nothing a wheelchair user can do for themselves to get up those stairs, but there is plenty a person with food allergies can do to protect him or herself.

@dxs, I have always wondered if kids at the “allergy table” felt a bit like castaways. I don’t remember there being such a thing as deadly food allegries when I was in school.

This is a tough one.
Here’s my issue. I used to work at a school, there was a day care there. There were signs at each end of the hallway staying that if you had eaten peanuts within the last 48 hours, you were not allowed to enter the classroom. So, basically the parents, teachers, other children were pretty much banned from ever eating peanuts.

I wasn’t finished…...

So where do you draw the line?
I nephew is allergic to fish, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t eat it.
Fish sticks haven’t been removed from the school lunch menu.

My niece is allergic to bee stings. Recess hasn’t been cancelled because of it.

I’m not trying to be a bitch, but there has to be some kind of line. One child’s allergy should not have such an impact on a whole group of people.

@Katniss Thanks! I prefer to live in reality where people should be responsible for their own shit, and shouldn’t expect everyone else to cater to them. I’m responsible for my kids, you be responsible for yours! And by “yours”, I mean a general “you”; I wasn’t aiming that at you personally.

It depends on how allergic the kid is.

There are some kids who are so incredibly allergic to peanuts that they go into instant anaphylactic shock whenever they ingest even trace amounts of peanuts. There are some people for which even 1/1000th of a peanut can cause a severe reaction. One peanut typically weighs around 0.5 grams, so that would mean that a severe reaction only requires 0.0005 grams of peanut.

@PhiNotPi That severe an allergy requires them to be ever vigilant about the presence of peanuts wherever they go. What I don’t think it should do is require the rest of the world to forgo peanuts.

Would they ban all sharp objects (scissors, push-pins, pencils…) because one kid is a hemophiliac?

For the people who are saying, “the kid is going to have to deal with this in other areas of life,” I think it’s important to consider that we’re talking about a child who is out of his/her parents’ care temporarily. We generally don’t hold children fully accountable for their own safety because it’s an unrealistic expectation. An adult might be able to take appropriate protective measures, carry and use an epipen, etc. but you can’t really expect a young child to do the same. So I don’t think asking for special precautions in school are really the same as asking for special precautions everywhere the kid goes in his/her life.

And then there’s the kids that use food allergies to bully

Of course not. This would be like killing all bees, so that no one who’s allergic ever gets stung.

^^ Right. Because killing off a species that is critical to our food supply is the same as banning a nut butter from a school.

You can’t punish non-allergic people. What needs to be done is educating allergic people.

@mattbrowne: “What needs to be done is educating allergic people.”

Ummm…Isn’t this what we’re trying to do by allowing allergic people to enter a building that is designed for their education?

What I’m saying is that the school shouldn’t ban peanuts or peanut butter. Allergic people should have all the knowledge and information to rule out eating the wrong food. Like diabetic who learn about the dosage of their insulin they require when eating carbohydrates at school.

I just kind of scanned the above responses but here’s my take as a parent and former teacher.

At one point I worked in a small daycare that had a ban on peanuts. Signs on the door declared it a nut-free facility. When we expanded and hired a full time nurse one of the first things she did was change the nut-free policy. We had so many different allergies and some of them were life threatening. The worst two I remember seeing reactions to were latex and eggs. Anyway the policy was changed because calling the center nut free was misleading and implied a guarantee that the center could in no way monitor. Every ingredient from every snack and meal couldn’t be checked by the teachers. We couldn’t tell if a kid came from home with a smear of peanut butter or some other tree nut product on their hands from breakfast. Calling the center nut free when we had no way of actually ensuring that left us open to more liability than not making such a claim.

I think teachers and schools should make reasonable accomodations for students with allergies and work with parents to keep those kids safe, but to take the step of banning something when you have literally hundreds of kids and parents coming and going is virtually impossible to enforce. At my kids school they ask us to try to avoid sending nut products for snack (which is eaten in the classroom) if there are allergies in that room. At lunch the kids with severe allergies sit at a different table if needed. I don’t think they are forced to but its an option for those whose parents are more concerned. They also use hand washing after lunch and snack to help contain those allergens. As with any risk in life you there are simple common sense solutions without going to extremes of banning allergens or banning the kids with allergies.

We had fast access to medication for the kids with allergies whether it was benedryl or an epi pen. Even with a severe reaction those medications work very quickly and in addition to the nurse, other teachers were trained to use them as well as basic first aid and CPR. Much better and realistic tools than a ban that does little more than provide a false sense of security.

Thanks @momster for the thoughtful response. My kids’ schools don’t ban either. But they try to accommodate by having peanut-free tables, etc as you describe.

What amazes me, however, is the victim mentality that appears in threads like this upon any request to accommodate anything or anyone. Scissors? Pencils? Bees?

@mattbrowne, at what age does the allergic person become responsible? Certainly you don’t expect a 5 year old to do so?

@nikipedia – Is this a debate about school or kindergarten? I think it’s even possible for a 5 year old to eat only food wrapped by his or her parents and not take food from another kid. The kindergarten teachers should know about all relevant medical conditions. What about a 5 year old kid eating 5 bread units of carbs forgetting to administer the insulin shot? Do you want to ban all carbs? Other kids are only allowed to eat protein, fat and fiber?

@mattbrowne your comparison is faulty. A nut allergy can kill a child simply by touching a desk or toy that has previously been handled by another kid who ate nuts. If a diabetic child touches a toy that’s previously been handled by a child who ate a cake, nothing is going to happen.

@downtide – How often is touching or smelling peanuts life-threatening? And how is this being dealt with outside of school buildings if a ban were in place?

@mattbrowne, I’m Type 1 diabetic too and I agree with @downtide that it is not a good comparison with a life-threatening allergy that can be triggered by particles in the air or on keyboards, etc. I’m not sure how common these sorts of allergies are in Europe. I suspect they are more widespread in the U.S. because of pollution and our “agricultural” practices. But peanut and some other allergies can be instant killers. It would be like as if being in the same room as cake or touching it would kill us.

@bookish1 – I’ve been a type 1 diabetic for 25 years and I used this example to show that if kids can learn how to manage it (it’s quite complex when you’re a beginner), kids can also learn to deal with their peanut allergy. Now the touching and smelling issue is different. I’m not sure if the percentage is higher in the US. I searched a bit and found German material on the matter about how to deal with it. I wasn’t aware of the instant killing potential. Perhaps that’s more rare in Europe. Are there peanut smell detection kits that could warn people before entering a room? If peanuts are banned at school, how to deal with the rest of public places? It would require a peanut-free world. Is that feasible?

@mattbrowne: Thank you for clarifying. But were you able to manage your diabetes at age 5? I could not have done so. It requires more forethought and abstract reasoning than I was capable of at the time. I think expecting only the children themselves to be responsible for their condition is a bit unreasonable.

I agree with you that it brings up all sorts of questions about how severely allergic people manage their lives in public places. Unfortunately, there do not seem to be any simple answers to this.

@bookish1 – No, I was 25. But I met a lot of parents of diabetic children. It’s tough, yes. While most children are fast learners, the problem is ongoing discipline. Knowing what to do, does not always mean doing it. Making serious mistakes can be life threatening (extreme hypoglycemia).

@mattbrowne, as I said above, I don’t think it’s fair to say that banning peanuts at school is the same as expecting a peanut-free world. School is a special case because young children are out of their parents’ care.

@nikipedia – Perhaps there’s a compromise. A ban might make sense when there’s one student with an extreme case of peanut allergy with smell and touch being life threatening. I imagine these cases are rare. Then a general ban in all schools wouldn’t be required.

@mattbrowne – It sounds like we’re all in agreement then, right?

The original question: “If one student is severely allergic to peanuts, do you think it’s reasonable for the school to completely ban it?”

You originally stated that it was not reasonable, and compared it to killing all bees so that nobody would ever be stung. I think the confusion seems to be that you may have interpreted the original question, which was specific to a particular school making accommodations for a particular child, as being a question about universal banning of nut butters from all schools. Was that the confusion?

I still disagree. It is not “reasonable accommodation” to require all other parents, grandparents, other family members, caregivers and others who may from time to time provide a normal child with “a brown bag lunch” to exhaustively research all ingredients that may be in the lunch.

A ban on “peanut butter sandwiches and cookies” may be acceptable, as that’s easy enough for any child to police for himself or herself, but the complete and total ban suggested by some child’s potential extreme allergy does not make it reasonable to demand that all others comply with the extreme prohibition. The child with that type of allergy should not be mainstreamed into public schools, period.

@CWOTUS, I’m confused, if you think banning peanut butter and things made with peanut butter is reasonable, to what are you objecting?

I also disagree that it is reasonable.

@nikipedia I think what @CWOTUS is getting at is banning everything with peanuts. That would include many chocolates, foods made with peanut oil, etc.

@nikipedia it’s because of “extreme allergies” that some food products come with the warning that “this food product was processed in a facility that also processes peanuts and tree nuts” (or words to that effect). It’s not necessarily going to be “peanut butter” that’s the problem, but any taint of peanut or other nut products. And because, as @JLeslie points out, peanuts and peanut oil are in such a wide variety of food products that any one of them can harm someone with the kind of “severe” or “extreme” allergic reaction that might kill them quickly.

That’s what I meant. It’s unreasonable to expect a school full of children and all of their various caretakers to make the extreme accommodation that some allergies would demand. It’s fine that so many people have good intentions, but the devil is in the detail.

@mattbrowne How often is touching or smelling peanuts life-threatening? I have no idea on actual figures, but apparently frequently enough that I personally have first-hand experience of it (I do not have a peanut allergy but I ate the peanuts and touched the keyboard that put a work colleague into intensive care).

According to a study in 2002, 1.2% of people in the US have a nut allergy. In a school of 500 students thats six.

And how is this being dealt with outside of school buildings if a ban were in place? It isn’t. But school is one of the few places where people are forced to go and in which other people are directly and legally responsible for your safety. Outside of school (or prison), everywhere else you go in your life is your own responsibility.

I think the ban on peanuts in a school is as much about the fear of litigation than protection for the child. Schools generally don’t have a lot of money so the risk of something going badly wrong and the school getting sued is higher than the difficulty of enforcing a peanut ban. Can a school afford its public liability insurance premiums if they double because last year six of their students ended up in intensive care, or dead?

In other places, it might be decided that the difficulty of banning peanuts is greater than the risk of getting sued, so there would be no ban. You can’t sue a restaurant for serving you a meal with traces of nuts because you volunteered to go and eat there in the first place. That’s why the menu says “All food is prepared in a kitchen where nuts are handled”.

My daughter had a friend who died from a salad bar. They asked if there was peanut oil on something and they said no. They were wrong.

@tom_g – I misjudged the ‘severely allergic’ part. It’s good we have this debate.

@downtide – It would be important to find how many of the 1.2% people allergic to nuts have a reaction from simply touching a keyboard. I searched the German web a bit and couldn’t find a single example of such an extreme case. I searched for bans and there seem none in place in Germany.

I also talked to my wife who’s been a teacher for many years. She had students with nut allergies, but all of them only had a problem when actually eating nuts such as peanuts. There’s also the issue of cross sensitivity, e.g. ragweed plus eating nuts. These people can eat nuts as long as there are no ragweed pollen around.

I wonder if all the pollution in the US adds to the sensitivity? There seems to be a lot of it here in Bakersfield which has the worst pollution in the US. The pollution here is mostly from pesticides and the oil industry, although we also get everything from the Bay Area through the Central Valley packed up against the Grapevine and Tehachapi mountains too.

@Judi I was watching a show about how a peanut butter mixture‘nut with a lot of nutrients is given to children in Africa and other parts of the world that are near death. It brings them back from the brink in about a week. The journalist doing the report asked a doctor what happens if the child is allergic to peanuts, and the doctor replied, “I have never seen it out here in these undeveloped parts of the world.” He added, “we don’t see much of any allergies really.”

Look, it all boils down to one simple statement: it is unreasonable to expect the parents of every other kid in the school to be responsible for the well-being of that one child. It’s simply not their responsibility.

This is an interesting read for anyone still following the topic.

If that link doesn’t work, then try this one, which is the same link made TinyURL.

@CWOTUS Another example of scare tactics taking over public perception.