Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schoolyard

[wissaboo]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

Lets just assume the child is actually allergic to the trees and the information in the story may not be 100% complete

 

[Candlelight]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

I'm allergic to Lion attacks.

Can someone please remove the Lion from the zoo next time I visit?

 

[Bob Karo]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

Doesn't really change anything, though. This kid is or is nearly a teenager. She should have learned how to avoid the things that will kill her by now. If this kid really can't attend this school with proper preventive medicine and an Epi-pen, just let them go to another campus. If none are practical, I'm sure they have some sort of in home teaching for disabled students who are unable to attend a school.

 

[Kirby]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

Both of my nephews have nut allergies severe enough that they have to carry epi-pens wherever they go. One has reactions even when he's around nuts. One time at school, a kid in the previous lunch hour are a peanut butter sandwich in the same seat where Adam sat and he reacted. The school established a nut-free table (insert your own joke here) but they didn't eliminate nuts, or chop down trees. Sometimes if you have an allergy you deal with it, you don't make the world conform to your needs.

 

[kythe]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

My son's elementary school also has a nut-free table in the cafeteria, and I can understand the reasoning behind it. I'm not going to be the one making jokes about it. I assumed it was probably getting more common nowadays, due to the increase in severe peanut allergies.

I hope this woman doesn't get to chop down trees, because they aren't the same level of danger and I see trees as a precious resource. I know trees aren't an "endangered species" so to speak, but there are far fewer of them than there used to be due to housing and other expansion, as well as people using the wood. But why cut down more trees than what we need to?

 

[Deckerd]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

I doubt very much whether the council involved will start cutting down park trees because one woman is over-protective.

I don't understand why nut allergies are on the increase. Mind you I live in a family where allergy (aside from one sister who's allergic to all earrings except gold (good call that woman)) just doesn't exist. Is asthma allergy?

 

[Kirby]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

^^ From what I understand the increase in nut allergies in children corresponds to the beginning of genetically modifying nuts, specifically peanuts in the early 1980s. I think this is more circumstantial evidence than anything else but I've never gone looking for studies on it. Either way, I think GMO foods are kind of scary.

 

[Danny99]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

I came across this article a few days ago. The comments are hilarious, including several links to medical articles stating exactly what M'Sharak said.

I knew a child who takes regular medication because simply being around oak trees at certain times of the year could trigger anaphylactic shock (this was several years ago and I can't remember exactly what triggers the allergy, only that she was "allergic to oak trees"). The child's mother, a nurse, made sure the child always took her medication, always had an epi-pen on her, and sent the child on her merry way outside to play with the other children. No way in hell did she expect a single tree that wasn't on her own property to be cut down, even though in this rare case being around an oak tree really could kill her child. The child was four years old when the allergy suddenly developed, and from that age she could recognise an oak tree and knew to stay away from it.

I'm glad the child and parent you mentioned went the sensible route I prefer.

This woman is a nut herself.

 

[StolenThunder]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

I doubt very much whether the council involved will start cutting down park trees because one woman is over-protective.

I don't understand why nut allergies are on the increase.

My understanding is that a rather simple explanation is a heightened response to non-threatening environmental substances due to less frequently encountered environmental pathogens in this age of hygeine and cleanliness.

So instead of being tuned to bacteria and that, the immune response becomes overactive to other allergens.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

Nut free primary schools are now the norm here. You don't have any nuts or peanut butter at all.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

There was a local story here a few months ago where a kid brought a sandwich to school and it was confiscated. They thought it was peanut butter when it really was a peanut butter replacement. Apparently it's part of a policy to ban anything that they can't be sure about, so rather than take a risk, they confiscated his sandwich.

 

[MacLeod]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

^Seems a tad draconian.

 

[scotpens]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

I don't understand why nut allergies are on the increase.

^^ From what I understand the increase in nut allergies in children corresponds to the beginning of genetically modifying nuts, specifically peanuts in the early 1980s. I think this is more circumstantial evidence than anything else but I've never gone looking for studies on it. Either way, I think GMO foods are kind of scary.

My understanding is that a rather simple explanation is a heightened response to non-threatening environmental substances due to less frequently encountered environmental pathogens in this age of hygeine and cleanliness.

So instead of being tuned to bacteria and that, the immune response becomes overactive to other allergens.

That seems a far more plausible explanation. Blaming everything on genetically modified foods is this decade's equivalent of blaming everything on atomic bomb tests back in the 1950s.

 

[Kestra]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

I just want to point out that it's not always possible to avoid things you are allergic to. For example, someone allergic to trees might know not to go near them. But sit in a classroom that has had open windows, or next to someone who dries their clothes outside, and you can stil, react. I'm not saying ban everything, just that awareness can only go so far.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

I'm allergic to fools. Can someone please remove all politicians from this planet?

 

[scotpens]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

There was a local story here a few months ago where a kid brought a sandwich to school and it was confiscated. They thought it was peanut butter when it really was a peanut butter replacement. Apparently it's part of a policy to ban anything that they can't be sure about, so rather than take a risk, they confiscated his sandwich.

Seems a tad draconian.

That's what comes of having idiotic "zero tolerance" policies. Zero tolerance is for authorities who don't want to be bothered with having to make judgments based on common sense.

 

[-Brett-]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

I hope the kid doens't share mom's attitude. I can just imagine how well it'll go over with her prospective employers when she demands that they pay for extensive landscaping around the workplace, and impose limits on what the other employees are allowed to bring in for lunch.

 

[MacLeod]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

There was a local story here a few months ago where a kid brought a sandwich to school and it was confiscated. They thought it was peanut butter when it really was a peanut butter replacement. Apparently it's part of a policy to ban anything that they can't be sure about, so rather than take a risk, they confiscated his sandwich.

Seems a tad draconian.

That's what comes of having idiotic "zero tolerance" policies. Zero tolerance is for authorities who don't want to be bothered with having to make judgments based on common sense.

Common sense what is this strange concept of which you speak. :P

 

[Mary Ann]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

I came across this article a few days ago. The comments are hilarious, including several links to medical articles stating exactly what M'Sharak said.

I knew a child who takes regular medication because simply being around oak trees at certain times of the year could trigger anaphylactic shock (this was several years ago and I can't remember exactly what triggers the allergy, only that she was "allergic to oak trees"). The child's mother, a nurse, made sure the child always took her medication, always had an epi-pen on her, and sent the child on her merry way outside to play with the other children. No way in hell did she expect a single tree that wasn't on her own property to be cut down, even though in this rare case being around an oak tree really could kill her child. The child was four years old when the allergy suddenly developed, and from that age she could recognise an oak tree and knew to stay away from it.

That's pretty interesting, what were her symptoms when she was around the trees? I'd be looking at moving somewhere where these trees were uncommon, though that might be counterproductive if slight exposure over the years build up the body's resistance to them. And I suppose there are whole countries where you'd be stuffed as far as no oaks went.

If I remember correctly, the child wasn't directly near a tree the first time the allergy kicked in. She did well on her medications, and, to be frank, it's difficult to avoid trees in the Canadian province of Ontario. As the child does well on her medications there's no need for the family to move to the prairie provinces or above the tree line.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Re: Nut-allergic child's mom demands oak trees be removed from schooly

Above the tree line! That would be hell.

I knew some people who moved to French Island which is a flat wasteland to avoid allergies.