Family Sues American Airlines Over Peanut-Free Flight

[badnarik]

Why did the parents wait until they were at the gate to ask about this? Seems a little late to me.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by badnarik

Why did the parents wait until they were at the gate to ask about this? Seems a little late to me.

They were told it was a peanut free flight when they bought their tickets back in February.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by metal_geek

Sending kids somewhere else to eat doesn't fix anything. Little billy eats a Peanut butter and Jam sandwich in isolation chamber, he walks back into the class after lunch and procceeds to play lego's. Shortly there after Ally plays with the same lego's, building her doll a magic castle. Too bad the lego's had the remnants of billys pb&j sandwich stuck to them, cause in about 15 min, a class full of 6 year olds are gonna watch little Ally turn blue and die in front of them.

That's a pretty grim story. Has anything like that ever actually happened in Canada?

[badnarik]

Originally Posted by Dion

They were told it was a peanut free flight when they bought their tickets back in February.

oh ok, i only saw 'gate agent' in the article

[Azure]

Whoa....if parents know that their kids have peanut allergies, they shouldn't send them out to go trick or treating.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by badnarik

oh ok, i only saw 'gate agent' in the article

It was in another news report i read.

[metal_geek]

Originally Posted by Azure

Whoa....if parents know that their kids have peanut allergies, they shouldn't send them out to go trick or treating.

Halloween is more then just about the candy... You teach children what they can and can't eat. You go to the door with them. You teach them to smile and say Thank you to everyone. You teach them to talk and be polite to their neighbours.

When you get home, you remove all the not safe treats and leave them with a bag full of Kitkat, Coffee Crisp, Chips, Licorice, and other assortied goodies, that were donated by neighbours who sacrified by buying mini Kit-Kat instead of mini Snickers.
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[Dion]

Dr. Wesley Burks, a food allergy expert at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., wrote in the Lancet medical journal that a solution appears to be on the horizon.

"I think there's some type of immunotherapy that will be available in five years. And the reason I say that is that there are multiple types of studies that are ongoing now," Burks said in a telephone interview.

Ideally, such a therapy would change a person's immune response to peanuts from an allergic one to a nonallergic one, Burks said.

He said one possible approach is using engineered peanut proteins as immunotherapy. Other approaches are showing promise, he said, including the use of Chinese herbal medicine in animal research.

Genetic engineering may also produce an allergen-free peanut, Burks said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24426038/

[Azure]

Originally Posted by metal_geek

Halloween is more then just about the candy... You teach children what they can and can't eat. You go to the door with them. You teach them to smile and say Thank you to everyone. You teach them to talk and be polite to their neighbours.

When you get home, you remove all the not safe treats and leave them with a bag full of Kitkat, Coffee Crisp, Chips, Licorice, and other assortied goodies, that were donated by neighbours who sacrified by buying mini Kit-Kat instead of mini Snickers.

True....but if peanut dust in the 'air' is a problem....reaching with your hand into the bowl and picking up some peanuts, putting them in your bag surely will create a problem too.

[metal_geek]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

That's a pretty grim story. Has anything like that ever actually happened in Canada?

It is grimm, and it's what the parents of these kids live with every day.

Has it happend in Canada? I don't know.. But if its extremely rare and only 4 or 5 kids die every year, I'm sure someone's watched little Alley die.. Hopefully it was just the parents of thoes 5 or 6 kids that had to see that and not 20 other young school children..

I don't know why people make such a big deal of not sending thier kids to school with nutty treats, I can only guess it's a newer thing and not enough people have been affected by it to care. It's no different then lots of stuff we do.

Alot of parents send thier kids to the park. Maybe Society should just weed out the kids that aren't smart enough to not get run over on the roads by the park? OR.... We can make "Play ground Zones" and ask other people to slow down and pay attention to the children playing around there. Of course, if that's imposing on your rights to drive 50 where and when you want, I can understand why not sending nuts to schools is an issue. If you're a parent who gets angry when someone speeds thought a playground zone, then apply the same logic to the Nut issue please..
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[metal_geek]

Originally Posted by Azure

True....but if peanut dust in the 'air' is a problem....reaching with your hand into the bowl and picking up some peanuts, putting them in your bag surely will create a problem too.

These kids are not fragile flowers... They're just normal every day kids with an allergy. I think the idea behind the airplane "dust" issue, is that they are in an enclosed space, with people actively eating actual peanuts, creating the "dust". It's not the same as being handed pre-wrapped treats while standing outdoors.

It would be the same as being deathly allergic to Drywall dust. You have to stay at a hotel or sleep on the street, You're told several times there will be no construction going on but that there are no gurantees cause there is drywall in the hotel. It's an acceptable risk you're aware of and take it. When you get there you find your room sealed off and someone sanding in your bathroom..
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[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by metal_geek

It is grimm, and it's what the parents of these kids live with every day.

There seems to be no distinction between "allergic to peanuts" and "deathly allergic to even passive second hand contact to peanut residue and dust".

How many kids out there are so allergic that they would die from touching a lego that was touched by another kid who had eaten a PBJ sandwich? I've got to think that the number is very small. We don't even know if it has ever happened in this country, but "parents of these kids live with it every day". Do they have to? Are these kids actually that sensitive to it? Food allergy deaths are extremely rare. How many of those few deaths are of this nature? Has anyone been told by a pediatrician that contact with a lego that another child has touched is going to kill the child?

Originally Posted by metal_geek

Alot of parents send thier kids to the park. Maybe Society should just weed out the kids that aren't smart enough to not get run over on the roads by the park? OR.... We can make "Play ground Zones" and ask other people to slow down and pay attention to the children playing around there. Of course, if that's imposing on your rights to drive 50 where and when you want, I can understand why not sending nuts to schools is an issue. If you're a parent who gets angry when someone speeds thought a playground zone, then apply the same logic to the Nut issue please..

I really don't care either way, I just think it is a strange overreaction. If there is a kid in that school who will die if he so much as touches a bit of peanut butter then fine, a total ban. If there is some kid in the school who can't eat a peanut butter sandwich then, well, don't eat a peanut butter sandwich.

If you want to compare it to driving past the park... a total ban on this stuff is like a total ban on driving near that park, even though nothing bad has ever really happened there.

[ernie]

Originally Posted by J pold

But isn’t this the case for all types of allergies? Dust, grass, hay, mold, latex, pet, smoke allergies all get worse with over exposure?

I still don't read the same meaning from the article as what you reading it. I had my interpretation from everything that was said in the article and believe that is the correct interpretation. It's not a study that says reactions aren't serious and don't happen. It's a study based on looking at death statistics and saying "not many people died so we must be doing something right and we need to maybe ease of on the paranoia". It doesn't say that kids with this kind of allergy don't have severe reactions. In fact it says NOTHING of severity of the attack itself only that given the current interventions etc at the scene and later medical attention deals with the problem so that a kid dying is a rare event. Again it doesn't say anything about attack severity or how many kids went to hospital and needed treatment or what would happen if they didn't get the treatment.

The article is saying that as a whole yeah the fatal reactions are rare but let me tell you, knowing several people with the allergy for them the reactions are very serious.

Those other allergies don't have the same tendency at all. In fact as people get older they tend to grow out of many of them.

What makes food allergies so special…why are people so willing to accommodate?

Because that's what people do. They accomodate others by making small changes that don't affect anything other than they don;t have to watch someone else go through a traumatic experience.

Let me tell you...if you had a kid that had a sever allergy and the parents of his/her friend ignored your concern you'd be mighty pissed off they didn't make a slight adjustment to the daily routine to avoid exposure.

It’s still a concern, however because so few people die it isn’t as big of concern as say the common flu (see jammies post). The reason why there are so few deaths is probably because people are responsible with there allergies and don’t put themselves in a position to have a reaction. These people (like me) don’t expect everyone else to accommodate there needs and realize that they may have to make sacrifices to keep out of trouble

The problem is kids aren't responsible. They are stupid and fearless. They need help in getting that protection until they can protect themselves.

Again I didn’t say they weren’t serious, they are, but just not a serious as you alleged too in your response to my question. What I’m saying is that they AREN’T serious enough to not let kids have peanuts or peanut butter at school, they also aren’t serious enough too influence what should or shouldn’t be served on an air plane IMO. I guess the reason I’m so un sympathetic is that I have a very rare allergy that can be fatal. I have been admitted to emergency it was because of my negligence. I also don’t walk around expecting my family, friends, co-workers, or whom ever else to bend over backwards for me, it’s my burden not theirs

Again your link doesn't say anything about the severity of the attack, or the medical attention that was needed, or what would happen if they never received the medical attention. It's a study of death rate nothing more and nothing less. I'd much rather not have my child witness an allergy attack to a friend of any severity. It isn't pretty. And just because the kid doesn't die doesn't mean it was nothing and we shouldn't do something.

In the end the reaction are often very very serious. I have a relative that can't walk into a room with Ferraro Roche's without having an attack due to a severe hazelnut allergy. But I'm sure you wouldn't accomodate that on a flight or meeting room and open it up anyway while watching her getting carted off to the emergency room as she struggles for breath?

She has been in many emergency rooms and without medical intervention would have died a couple of times. When she flies she asks the airline to go package nut free and those airline have never served nuts. Ever. On most of the flights they also asked people not to open any of their own packages of nuts or PB+J sandwiches. And you know what? EVERYONE accomodates the simple request and are happy to do so. Without a problem. It amazes me that people are annoyed they can't send a kid to school with a peanut butter sandwich because little Johnny might die in however rare or freakish of an event.

[Finner]

I'm pretty allergic to grass seed, to the point where i can barely breath. But I never had the schools i went to remove the grass fields they have.

How come a peanut allergy means no one can have peanut butter, but a grass allergy doesn't mean no field? I mean what if someone had grass on there shoes and I accidentally touched it, and got mildly stuffed up. How is that fair? How about perfume allergies? Kids shouldn't be allowed to wear deoderent.

How far do we go?

And how come peanut allergies are the only one that you ever hear about? Why is that particular allergy placed on a pedestal.

Everything about this is totally ridiculous. Over zealous parents ruining it for everybody else.

[metal_geek]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

There seems to be no distinction between "allergic to peanuts" and "deathly allergic to even passive second hand contact to peanut residue and dust".

How many kids out there are so allergic that they would die from touching a lego that was touched by another kid who had eaten a PBJ sandwich? I've got to think that the number is very small. We don't even know if it has ever happened in this country, but "parents of these kids live with it every day". Do they have to? Are these kids actually that sensitive to it? Food allergy deaths are extremely rare. How many of those few deaths are of this nature? Has anyone been told by a pediatrician that contact with a lego that another child has touched is going to kill the child?



I really don't care either way, I just think it is a strange overreaction. If there is a kid in that school who will die if he so much as touches a bit of peanut butter then fine, a total ban. If there is some kid in the school who can't eat a peanut butter sandwich then, well, don't eat a peanut butter sandwich.

If you want to compare it to driving past the park... a total ban on this stuff is like a total ban on driving near that park, even though nothing bad has ever really happened there.

Its not about touching the lego or the nuts and haveing a reaction.. it where the kids hands go after. I don't know a spicific ammount of time, but I can say for sure there are a number of minutes every day that kids hand, pencils, shirt sleeves, and possibly even lego's end up in thier mouths.

Do you touch hand rails on stairs?... Some people do, some people who eat peanuts do and so do some people who are allergic to nuts. Most food reactions come when the person didn't know they were comming in contact with the food.

A total ban on peanuts is not like a total ban on driving. A total ban on eating at school would be the same. There are risks even at driving 20km in a school zone, there are risks with all the food that may contain nuts in a lunch room. All nut parents are asking is not to do the equilivent of 50km/h through thier kids class room. You watch your peanuts through our kids classroom, and I'll not do 50km/k through your kids soccerfield...
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[Swarly]

I'm pretty sure that there have been more deaths in Canada this year from helicopter falling on head related deaths than peanut related deaths, maybe we should ban helicopters.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by metal_geek

Do you touch hand rails on stairs?... Some people do, some people who eat peanuts do and so do some people who are allergic to nuts. Most food reactions come when the person didn't know they were comming in contact with the food.

No offense, but this is kind of absurd. Hand rails now?

What about the kid who eats peanut butter on toast at home for breakfast, comes to school, touches the handrail and then an allergic kid comes along and takes the same stairs and touches the handrail, picks up his pencil then chews on it and dies.

I'm not trying to make light of the situation, but this is an example of what you are saying is possible.

Is it? With which kids? How many? Any?

[burn_baby_burn]

Originally Posted by Azure

Whoa....if parents know that their kids have peanut allergies, they shouldn't send them out to go trick or treating.

Actually it is the one good thing about having a child with nut or peanut allergies. You get to eat everything that may pose a risk to your child. So basically most of the chocolate bars. I'll grab a chocolate bar out of her bag. She says "that doesn't have nuts in it". I'll read the ingredients "Processed in a facility that contains nuts". "Too bad". Down the hatch it goes.

Its not like the kids with these allergies are left out either. Kids haul away so much candy Trick or Treating, it is pretty disgusting.

[burn_baby_burn]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

No offense, but this is kind of absurd. Hand rails now?

What about the kid who eats peanut butter on toast at home for breakfast, comes to school, touches the handrail and then an allergic kid comes along and takes the same stairs and touches the handrail, picks up his pencil then chews on it and dies.

I'm not trying to make light of the situation, but this is an example of what you are saying is possible.

Is it? With which kids? How many? Any?

One thing you need to remember. It isn't the parents that are forcing the schools to be peanut free. It may have been at one time. With my daughter, the school down the road that she attends has been peanut free for some time. It was the school that sent home the questionnaire with the students asking if your child had any allergies. It has been the school that has been extra cautious. A lot more than I would have been.

[metal_geek]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

No offense, but this is kind of absurd. Hand rails now?

What about the kid who eats peanut butter on toast at home for breakfast, comes to school, touches the handrail and then an allergic kid comes along and takes the same stairs and touches the handrail, picks up his pencil then chews on it and dies.

I'm not trying to make light of the situation, but this is an example of what you are saying is possible.

Is it? With which kids? How many? Any?

It is crazy and hard to imagin but that what these parents live with every day..You're absurd situation is not that absurd. More then likley peanut butter from home is gonna smeared on the bus seat, and thats how the allergy kid will come in contact with it. If no peanuts are served in school, that significally reduces the chances of contact. The majority of reactions are a result of indirect injestion of peanut protien..

You teach your child to not share lunches...what foods have hidden nuts.. You teach your child to wash thier hands, and not put things in thier mouth. That's all you can control.

How many kids, I'd be willing to say 1 per grade level per average school(just my own numbers) have peanut allergies, and likely half of thoes would be deathly severe.
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