Consider the peanut. Is it:
a. A nutritious food that Americans eat-in various forms-at the rate of 8 pounds per person per year?
b. A symbol for anything petty or insignificant-“he works for peanuts”?
c. Not a nut at all, but a legume related to peas, beans, soybeans and licorice?
d. A deadly killer capable of triggering fatal allergic reactions?
The answer, of course, is “all of the above.” But it’s the “deadly killer part that has been attracting attention lately.
In August, the federal Department of Transpor-tation ordered airlines to set aside a least three peanut-free rows of seats on a flight if an allergic passenger requests it.
More recently, newspapers have carried reports of schools banning peanuts and peanut butter from their lunchrooms in response to demands by parents of highly allergic children.
Columnists and commentators have hooted at the absurdity of it all-or fretted over the specter of a world where nothing is permitted and everything is forbidden.
Are we headed down that Orwellian path? After all, peanuts are just the tip of an iceberg. Many other foods also may cause problems, some of them severe.
Peanuts are regarded as the leading culprit for school-age children, but should they be banned?
Not according to food-allergy advocacy groups and allergy doctors, who say eliminating offending foods is not the best way to handle the threat.
“The way to combat that is education and awareness for anyone who serves food to anyone else-whether it’s a restaurant or an airline or a school,” said Anne Munoz-Furlong, founder and director of the Food Allergy Network, a nationwide advocacy group based in Fairfax, Va.
“They need to understand that food allergies can be deadly to some people.”
A ban is counterproductive, she said. “Inevitably, it divides the community and you can’t do what you need to do, which is work together.”
A ban also can produce a false sense of security, the network says, noting that one school banned peanuts, only to have an allergic child accidentally eat them twice, in baked goods and candies.
Food restrictions may make sense on airplanes, which are crowded, cramped and recirculate their air, says Dr. Dominick Minotti, a Seattle allergist and partner in the Northwest Asthma and Allergy Center clinic.
But for school cafeterias and other, more open settings, he’s opposed to such draconian measures.
“I think it’s better to face the reality of our society,” Minotti said. “For food allergies, the more that we can educate the kids themselves that have that allergy and also their peers, the better off we’re going to be in dealing with it.”
Parents who throw down the gauntlet of your-kid’s-lunch-or-my-kid’s-life are motivated by fear and frustration, Munoz-Furlong said. “They’re not getting what they need from the school.”
In some cases, she said, schools have backed parents into a corner by expelling highly allergic students, contending that the school isn’t equipped to deal with the child’s condition.
When that happens, aggrieved parents can respond by invoking federal laws designed to ensure equal access for people with disabilities, including life-threatening allergies.
At the Bush School, a private school in Seattle, food-service director Rick Schwartz asks parents to inform the staff of any food allergies, so those children can be monitored and offending ingredients disclosed.
“It’s really just a matter of communication,” Schwartz said. “Peanut butter has been a staple of school lunches for years. Quite frankly, I think it’s an individual responsibility.”
The key to coping with food allergies is simply avoiding the foods that trigger the reactions. That means scrupulous reading of ingredient lists on packaged foods and persistent interrogations of restaurant waiters and dinner-party hosts.
That can be burdensome for an adult managing a severe allergy. But it’s even more difficult, and scarier, for parents of allergic young children.
“They have to watch like hawks what their kids eat,” Minotti said. “Parents need to train them about what to look for. As kids get older, they visit friends, have snacks at school, go to parties and so on.
“The vigilance by the child and the training by the parents is absolutely necessary.”
Avoidance is never easy. Ingredient lists can be a problem because they aren’t always accurate. The Food Allergy Network’s newsletters regularly cite examples of undeclared peanuts, walnuts, milk or other red-alert foods in packaged products.
Dangers can lurk in unlikely places. In 1986, a student at Brown University died when she ate chili that had been thickened with peanut butter. In 1996, Munoz-Furlong said, another college student died after eating an egg roll at a Chinese restaurant. He had asked if the roll was fried in peanut oil and had been assured it wasn’t, but he wasn’t told that the wrapper was sealed with peanut butter.
For highly allergic people, it doesn’t take much. Minotti says one of his patients, a young girl allergic to fish, was rushed to the hospital from a shopping-mall food court after her mother cut the girl’s hamburger with a knife that had been used to cut the mother’s fish and chips.
There’s no cure for food allergies, and no proven method that prevents a reaction. Fortunately, there is a life-saving antidote to a severe reaction: an injection of epinephrine, a prescription drug also known as adrenaline that rapidly boosts blood pressure and heart rate, stabilizing the body’s vital systems.
For some schoolchildren, the most critical part of their wardrobe isn’t a pair of Air Jordans or a Starter jacket. It’s a fanny pack stuffed with a syringe of epinephrine, and they never leave home without it.
MANAGING THE RISK
For parents of a food-allergic child, here are pointers from the Food Allergy Network for keeping your children safe at school:
Plan ahead. Before school starts, request a meeting with the school principal, school nurse, cafeteria aide and teacher to explain your child’s food allergies.
Role-play with your child about situations that may arise, such as peer pressure to taste new foods or trade food at snack time or in the cafeteria.
Send a spoil-proof lunch to be kept at school in case your child forgets or loses lunch one day. For example, a can of fish or meat, a small package of crackers, canned fruit and a container of fruit juice.
For more information or to order a copy of the School Food Allergy Program to use as a teaching tool with school officials, contact the Food Allergy Network at 800-929-4040 or 703-691-3179, or visit its Web site, www.foodallergy.org.
