Quandry

[jhetley]

The local high school has banned peanuts, peanut products, and tree nuts (a whole different question) due to a student with hyper allergies.

I speak here as a parent of a child with hyper allergies, a child that attended the same school without such Big Brother intervention.  In fact, the school administration wouldn't let him keep emergency medication at hand -- had to keep it in the school nurse office.

How far do you interfere with the actions of the majority to smooth the way for a single individual?  I don't think they are doing that student a favor.  That kid is going to have to live in a world with peanuts in it.  Staying alive is going to be his/her problem, not the world's.  Example -- she/he will never dare take an airplane.  Peanuts.  Can't enter a grocery store.  Peanuts.  On and on, ad infinitum.

I dunno.  Looks like a public "feel-good" exercise rather than adaptation to a handicap.

Comments

[wolfette]

I haven't been served peanuts on an airplane recently - they've switched to mini-pretzels and similar stuff because of the peanut allergy situation.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

The "cabin attendants" handed out mini-bags of peanuts on all four flights of our recent trip.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Oh, and there's a sizable population of people allergic to wheat -- not just gluten intolerance but full-blown allergy. Like, they're set off by wallpaper paste.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

It's not even a feel-good exercise: it's a typical cowardly response from administrators to prevent any possibility of a lawsuit. I have two nieces and a nephew who are going through the same thing: all three are deathly allergic to peanuts, but thankfully they have a family that notes (a) they'll watch what they eat and (b) they WILL have an Epi-Pen with them at all times. And when the local school administrators (whom, to steal from former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, can't be called weasels because weasels have a backbone) started yammering about how they'd have to ban all peanut products in the school cafeteria on the possibility that the kids might get a taste of peanut or other legume, my in-laws stood up and said "Wouldn't it be easier to let them carry autoinjectors than to punish everyone else for their allergies?"

Of course, now we have an issue with the Epi-Pen. After all, they have sharp points, and those points could get loose and hurt another student to the point where their parents try to sue for damages. How the hell I got through four years of high school in the same chickenshit school district is beyond me.

[quilzas.livejournal.com]

Agreed. It's absurd to ban a substance because 1 student in a few hunderd has an allergy. Give 'em an Epi-Pen, educate the student, and call it a day. They have to deal with the world at large. World at large should be not cushioned in hypoallergenic substances.

Next thing you know, they're going to ban forks 'cause they're pointy. *grumbles* What's wrong with pointy objects? Geez.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

The "emergency medication" referenced in my post was an epi-pen. No, he couldn't keep it with him. "They" were afraid it contained heroin? Or maybe he'd kill the star quarterback with it?

I can see quilzas laughing at either concept...

[quilzas.livejournal.com]

Laughing, no?

More like head-thumping-desk at the paranoia levels of this 'society'.

[quilzas.livejournal.com]

On the selection of flights I've been on this year, while I never got peanuts, I think a couple had them as offerings (you could choose between like 4 different snacks on a couple of the flights...).

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I figured you might laugh at the images, having met Younger Son.

[quilzas.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, yes. Younger Son leaping onto Quarterback's back, arms and legs akimbo as he clings on, desperately jabbing the epi-pen over and over into the Quarterback's neck..... that is a rather amusing image!