jenny mccarthy wants your kid to get measles: autism, vaccines, and stupid idiots

I'm trying to think of a food I feel strongly enough about that I would balk at a request not to eat it around another person who could have an allergic reaction to it and I seriously can't. Cheese? Tacos? Fruit slices candy? Scrapple? I think I could forego any of them for whatever limited period of time I was around the person with the allergy.

But hey, if you love nuts and nut butters that much, I'd hate to deny you that pleasure.

We're not talking about kids eating PBJs while using kids with allergies as tables. We're talking about banning something everywhere in a school because of an incredibly slim chance that it is going to make it into a probably at most one or two kids' mouths.

I know what we're talking about. The slight risk of harm to a person vs. your personal love of nuts and nut butters. I see that as a completely avoidable risk that has very little cost to me or my kid. You don't. Just maybe put a Mr. Yuck sticker on your kid's lunch bag as a head's up.

We're talking about the difference between school being a safe place for kids with nut allergies -- many of them too young to fully understand the risk their allergies pose or to take sufficient steps to protect themselves against them -- and not. That's also the difference between their parents being comfortable allowing their kids to go to the school, and not.

The school is saying that nuts (peanuts are legumes but whatever) are a threat to the safety of their students. That's an accurate assessment. Even if the threat is rare, the cost of eliminating that threat is a minor inconvenience, so there's no good reason to take the risk.

School fires are rare, the chance of any single child being harmed in a fire is "incredibly slim". You OK with a school not taking fire safety precautions, or practicing fire drills?

Peanut butter is an extremely cheap source of daily protein provided to kids by parents who may be on very limited food budgets, and stores longer than lunchmeats or than comparably inexpensive sources that need to be refrigerated.

That story is heartbreaking also has squat to do with what gets packed in my kid's school lunch.

― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Tuesday, February 3, 2015 2:31 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this reminded me of when joe the plumber said, ‘your dead kids don’t trump my constitutional rights.’

Lol Joe the Plumber and Jenny McCarthy.

I love how say that school bans on nuts are overkill is being equated to FUCK SAFETY altogether. You people are precious.

There hasn't been an increase in nut allergies necessarily, but there has been a dramatic increase in diagnosis of nut allergies. Who wants to be pediatrician who doesn't err on the side of caution with those stakes?

it's not your risk to take, is how i see it. people who get asked to do stuff for others' safety then decide they know better are totally on a par with anti-vaxxers. at least with anti-vaxxers their fear is of something serious, not that they'll have to bring a different type of sandwich.

it also might not be there to stop it going in a kid's mouth but on a shared surface. whoch i imagine is a fairly high probability.

Yes because of the vast physical dangers of touching tables.

Statistics on food allergies basically indicate that this is all much ado about nothing. Chances of kids getting injured playing dodgeball are higher than them getting hospitalized due to a food allergy, but I suppose you ignoramuses would argue that recess should be banned though since physical activity is preventable after all.

I really want to see the anti-vaxxer/911 truther/chemtrail believer/prepper/fluoride negator/gamergater/libertarian/Alex Jones listener Venn diagram.

Yes because of the vast physical dangers of touching tables.

this is why people such as yourself should not be trying to analyse the risks based on your superior knowledge.

Chances of kids getting injured playing dodgeball

Good luck finding grade schools that still play dodgeball.

Fortunately there are plenty of peanut alternatives. My kids can thankfully eat whatever (though they don't, the picky jerks), but they both grew up eating the Trader Joe's sunflower butter in sandwiches for school reasons. Close enough when mushed together with jelly.

Golf clap for your anti-vaxxer parody posts, Alex. Onion caliber.

almond butter is better anyway

if I can avoid being responsible for subjecting another human to trauma, illness, or in extreme cases death, by taking the easy step of omitting a substance from my kid's lunch, I see absolutely no reason in the world not to.

FREEEDOM! That's why. I'm picturing Alex in SF now as a one of those dudes carrying an AK around Wal Mart because fuck you, I have a right to.

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/KoryWatkinsGrocery.jpg

I hope that dude is wearing flip flops.

pictures of people who are not gr8080.

Anti-vaxxers much closer to the WHY WON'T YOU THINK OF THESE POOR PEANUT AFFLICTED CHILDREN DON'T KILL THEM rather than this is overblown everyone should get a grip about this nut nonsense, but hey whatevs.

I'm just surprised that there's not a vigorous "vaccination causes peanut allergy" movement.

oh wait

http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/allergies/vaccines-and-the-peanut-allergy-epidemic/

The irony is that one of the leading peanut allergy theories is that we are actually too safe and careful with what we feed our kids!

I don't know man. This seems pretty level headed to me:

The school is saying that nuts (peanuts are legumes but whatever) are a threat to the safety of their students. That's an accurate assessment. Even if the threat is rare, the cost of eliminating that threat is a minor inconvenience, so there's no good reason to take the risk.

Loving nuts and nut butters so much that you don't care about the safety of your kid's classmates seems like the more overblown stance.

What makes you think that's an "accurate assessment"? Most of what I've read indicates it's not, but a hysterical overreaction.

How many kids do you think take a loaded gun to school in a given day, and how small a percentage of kids die in a given day because of a loaded gun that a kid brought to school? Very, very small. So I really don't get why it's such a big deal if I pack a gun in my kid's lunch.

You are an idiot.

But I think formally the issue is that there's a tradeoff of the form "minor inconvenience for many --> reduction/elimination of major harm to a very few." There are lots of tradeoffs like that and I don't think there's much rhyme or reason to which ones we think of as "obviously you accept the inconvenience" and which ones we think of as "it would be absurd to accept the inconvenience."

Like, if we all drove 5% less, or resolved never to drive when we were tired, or whatever, we would be taking on only a minor inconvenience, and fewer people would get killed under the wheels of our cars. But we don't really strive to do that.

I don't actually think vaccines fit that well, because the potential harm from a large unvaccinated segment of the population is a lot bigger than any possible harm from a world without peanut-free zones, unless I have misunderstood the numbers completely.

In the end there's probably no principled way to think about these questions, you just have to have some vague sense about how minor the minor inconvenience is and how major the major harm is and how few the very few are, and do your best.

xpost The thing is, it may be an overreaction in your estimation, but it's hardly hysterical. It's actually been a very gradual, very reasonable ramp-up.

BRB going to eat all the peanuts and peanut butter in the world to spare everyone this debate.

Fortunately for you, peanut butter in much of the world is considered kind of gross and weird.

Skippy for life.

I ate alone every single day of my education, sharing nothing. So, peanut butter.

xpost The thing is, it may be an overreaction in your estimation, but it's hardly hysterical. It's actually been a very gradual, very reasonable ramp-up.
--Josh in Chicago

I don't think the question of whether this is "hysterical" or "reasonable" are as cut and dried as your post implies. Also probably depends a lot on where you are.

Reminds me of the story my mom tells about her first few months in the States after emigrating from Cuba in '61. The refugee center gave everyone huge blocks of government cheese and tins of peanut butter. She and the family were like, "uhhh..." Not long after they made all kinds of shit: shakes, yogurt, ice cream. But never to spread on sandwiches.

It's also important to teach kids as early as possible to trust no one and nothing.

That's why my kid gets the gun in the lunchbox.

Peanut butter and bullets, fuckers.

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/files/images/0903-water-pistol-peanuts-300.jpg

man, this thread got derailed, didn't it?

in other news, i think i'm going to make a banana snake with some peanut butter.

shake, banana SHAKE.

What makes you think that's an "accurate assessment"? Most of what I've read indicates it's not, but a hysterical overreaction.

Links or STFU.

Here's the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/foodallergies/
Here's a the Canadian society of allergy and immunology (pdf): http://www.anaphylaxis.ca/files/Anaphylaxis%20in%20Schools%203rd%20Edition2015.pdf

None of that reads like a hysterical overreaction to me.

Despite the knee jerk libertarianism itt, there are no laws or even regulations making schools peanut free. It's just much easier to manage the problem at the door, by excluding peanuts altogether, than manage a series of close calls and potentially dangerous situations after the fact.

Alex, this is a serious and non-confrontational question: is this hypothetical for you or do you have a kid in a peanut-free school?

I have a kid but she's 14 months old so it's not something I have to worry about now (so far she's not allergic to any food, either), so my stance is largely hypothetical for me at this point. Just more of a "If confronted with this situation it's what i would do."

My kid is in a nut free school. He's also four though.

I think the CDC recommendations are all sensible. I also don't think they are recommending a blanket ban on nuts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEb5a-I0kyg

shake, banana SHAKE.

― I dunno. (amateurist), Tuesday, February 3, 2015 10:47 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Man, early Lush song demos were weird.

Carl, Plasmon, et al OTM. I love peanuts to death and am grateful not to be allergic to them, but there are a couple of foods I am mildly allergic to, and totally see the sense in managing the problem at the door.