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<p>I don’t for one moment believe that simply eating a peanut product in the vicinity of a student with a PA resulted in a legitimate life threatening emergency (aka anaphylaxis). A conditioned response as a result of repeatedly being given misinformation about peanut allergy and anaphylaxis? Yeah, could be.</p>
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<p>I believe it. If the two students were sitting next to each other, the allergic student could easily have had physical contact with the peanut product without realizing it. For example, the two students may have touched each other while talking, and there might have been peanut residue on the hand of the student who was eating the peanut product. Or the peanut product may have come in contact with the table, and the allergic student then touched that part of the table.</p>
<p>Even if there is some doubt about the possibility that sufficient peanut allergens could be transmitted through the air to cause an anaphylactic reaction, that does not mean that the incident didn’t happen in the way it was described, and that it was not a conditioned reaction. It merely means that the exact way in which the allergic student was exposed to the peanut product may not have been recognized.</p>
<p>^^^Cobrat didn’t mention anything about contact with the peanut butter, simply that the “idiot” was eating a sandwich in the vicinity. Clearly there are people who believe that anaphylaxis can be caused by air transmission or even by “odors.”</p>
<p>Believing that being around someone eating peanut butter can be fatal could sure as heck result in a conditioned response.</p>
<p>Since there is no mandatory reporting of an adverse reaction to peanuts or peanut butter, while there is for reactions to medications, I don’t find it all that difficult to believe. Note that the Mayo Clinic study referenced earlier didn’t say it’s not possible for anaphylaxis to occur, but that it is highly unlikely. Remember proofs? One can prove that anaphylaxis is possible by citing a specific case, but the lack of cases does not prove it it not possible. </p>
<p>For years I have seen study after study state that there is no such thing as a chocolate allergy, yet for all intents and purposes, at least one of my children is allergic to chocolate. That is because she is allergic to nickle, and nickle is known to be absorbed by cocoa beans (among many other plants). So she has an allergic reaction to most chocolate. It she is tested for an allergy to cocoa, that test will be done with purified cocoa, and there will be no reaction. But the reality is that nickel is commonly found in cocoa beans, and thus is chocolate. </p>
<p>As for a college banning peanut butter, and whether it gives a false sense of security, I don’t think it does. The ban means that the school will not serve any products containing peanuts. That means it is safe for the student to consume anything served by the school in that dining hall. There will be no cross contamination because other students took little care in where they placed a serving utensil. Can other students have peanut products elsewhere on campus, or even bring something into the dining hall - yes, so the PA student will still need to be vigilant - just as vigilant as he should be in any dining facility.</p>
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<p>This is supported by anecdotes in this article and the comment section that follows. (Emphasis added.)</p>
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<p><a href=“Food Allergy Precautions When Flying - The New York Times”>Food Allergy Precautions When Flying - The New York Times;
<p>As an aside, if the PA mom were actually “polite,” she’d have warned people BEFORE the flight that their go-to protein source on the plane would be off-limits…or better yet, have a bag of alternatives to offer them.</p>
<p>Take a look at this handout for food-allergic students from a university that values the residential experience (which includes eating in specific dining halls) but does not keep peanut or tree nut products out of the dining hall.</p>
<p><a href=“http://dining.uchicago.edu/sites/dining.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/CSL%2013%20302%20Allergy%20Brochure_V3.pdf[/url]”>http://dining.uchicago.edu/sites/dining.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/CSL%2013%20302%20Allergy%20Brochure_V3.pdf</a></p>
<p>What impresses (and worries) me is the immense complexity of what students with food allergies have to do.</p>
<p>Also, food-allergic students do not get full service. For example, those with peanut or tree nut allergies can’t eat desserts. </p>
<p>And take a look at page 13. You can’t get out of the meal plan easily. You have to petition and prove your case that you can’t eat in the dining hall.</p>
<p>This is the kind of stuff that food-allergic students face at many colleges. Wouldn’t life be easier for them – and for the staff at the University of Chicago – if the dining hall simply didn’t serve anything that contained peanuts or tree nuts?</p>
<p>And if you want to argue that a student with a food allergy simply shouldn’t go to the University of Chicago, there are those who would counter-argue that this particular university offers an educational experience that can’t be duplicated elsewhere.</p>
<p>Nrsdb, my coworkers and I witnessed this type of a conditioned response. We had an employee who was severely allergic to thiols. These compounds have a very distinct smell - if you ever smelled natural gas, you know what a thiol could smell like, because a thiol is added to odorless natural gas to warn us about leaks. She would gasp for air and break out in hives if a she got a whiff, so we were extremely careful when working with those and asked her to leave the lab area if someone was handling a stinky mixture. One day, when no one was doing anything thiol-related, she walked past the work area of one chemist who had a misfortune to… pass gas. Her reaction to the smell was severe, and a safety committee investigation followed! However, she was perfectly fine with using public bathrooms here at work… :)</p>
<p>Marian,</p>
<p>I see what you’re saying…but I would think that someone with a severe PA would be cautious about what they eat in MOST establishments, and may choose to refrain from most desserts out anyway. It appears that is about the only thing they really have to stay away from. That’s not too bad.</p>
<p>It appears that MOST of their food items are peanut free already, and their main concern with cross-contamination comes from the “self-serve” aspect of the dining hall.</p>
<p>It looks like in extreme cases University of Chicago is even willing to arrange for a single room in housing to accomodate a person with severe allergies.</p>
<p>It seems to me that at some point, these young adults must manage LIFE in the REAL WORLD, and this environment is at least good enough to inform them of the hazards, provide education and support for them and work to make their environment as safe as reasonably possible.</p>
<p>Will a PA person just not eat in any restaurant in any city? Most restaurants I go to have nuts somewhere on the menu.</p>
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<p>In the real world, it is usually possible to eat at home or bring food from home to eat elsewhere. Even during travel, it is usually possible to live entirely on packaged, labeled foods and fresh produce. If restaurants are too risky an environment, the adult diner can avoid them completely. </p>
<p>Eating safely as an adult with food allergies is easier than eating in a college dining hall, which is a restaurant-like environment.</p>
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<p>No. You can’t. We’re having a reasonable discussion here, and however strongly people feel on both sides, this is not comparable to the segregation of the 1950’s. You’re jumping the shark here.</p>
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<p>Sorry, but…“oh, well.” It is the lot in life of many people, not just the food-allergic, to not be able to attend University of Chicago. It is not THE ONLY option for anyone.</p>
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<p>Then…if it is that severe, colleges with only “restaurant-like environments,” which do not cater to the needs of the food-allergic, are off-limits. Marian, in your world are there any kids who do not get what they want, in college choices or other things in life? It DOES come across as entitlement to suggest that the food-allergic should have every possible option available to them, but the rest of us must accept limitations on choices and opportunities. I don’t get it.</p>
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<p>It’s really odd that FinanceGrad thinks something with 4 - 6% incidence isn’t “common.” Let’s split the difference and call it 5% – on a passenger plane holding 200 people, that’s 10 people. In an LAC with 2000 students, that’s 100 students.</p>
<p>Sally - you and I both lived in the same quads at our shared college. In our day, a physically disabled student would not have been able to navigate them. I don’t know if you have been back recently, but those quads have all been re-done and now there are handicap-accessible ramps connecting all the patios so someone in a wheelchair would be able to make their way around. Is that a good thing? Was it “entitled” of disabled students to expect the university to make accommodations for access? </p>
<p>I’m sorry, I just can’t see “not having peanuts in one dorm” as a limitation on choice and opportunities. They don’t serve caviar either in the dorms, and life goes on.</p>
<p>Suppose the value to students having peanuts in the dining hall is $30 a year – they would be willing to pay $30 more a year for a food service with peanuts than without. If the dining halls serves 1000 such students, banning peanuts does $30,000 of harm. If there is only one student with a peanut allergy, if the cost to him of finding an alternative place to eat is less than $30,000, then it makes sense to keep peanuts in the dining hall. You could survey students with peanut allergies to ask them how much monetary compensation it would take for them to be “made whole” from the injury of not being able to use the dining hall.</p>
<p>I don’t get it. Why is not having peanut products on the menu such a big deal?. Buy a big jar of Skippy and keep it in your room. Problem solved for $3.</p>
<p>Apparently about 2 percent of the population is vegan and if trends for veganism follow those for vegetarianism the incidence is not higher among college students than the general population. That would make the number of those who truly need peanuts as a source of protein much lower than those who are threatened by them.</p>
<p>If 5 percent of students on average are peanut allergic that means that among a population of 2,000 at a small LAC, many of which have a single dining room, 100 students would be PA. </p>
<p>[In</a> U.S., 5% Consider Themselves Vegetarians](<a href=“In U.S., 5% Consider Themselves Vegetarians”>In U.S., 5% Consider Themselves Vegetarians)</p>
<p>(Too slow-previous posters made my point while I was typing!)</p>
<p>Marian,</p>
<p>It looks like if the doctor said the dining hall was too risky for a student, they wouldn’t be required to get a plan anyway. But if they DID have a plan, it looks like ingredient lists are available for everything, and nuts are not present in any items except for desserts, some ice creams and individual packets of peanut butter.</p>
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[quote[ Suppose the value to students having peanuts in the dining hall is $30 a year – they would be willing to pay $30 more a year for a food service with peanuts than without. If the dining halls serves 1000 such students, banning peanuts does $30,000 of harm. If there is only one student with a peanut allergy, if the cost to him of finding an alternative place to eat is less than $30,000, then it makes sense to keep peanuts in the dining hall.
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<p>Thank goodness you aren’t on any decision-making boards to implement handicapped access (ramps, etc.). </p>
<p>You also need to keep in mind, however, how students themselves feel about excluding their PA peers. It may be that I value eating peanut butter - but I value being part of a community where I can break bread (so to speak) with my peanut-allergic friend even more. </p>
<p>This will be novel to you, Beliavsky, but some people actually think of people other than themselves when making decisions. Regarding the handicapped access ramps I referenced earlier wrt Sally - they made the quads we live in look “less pretty” and took up some patio space that could otherwise have been used, but, you see, because I have a heart, I value the concept that a student could navigate them in a wheelchair and that pleases me more than any loss of value from having x square feet less of patio space.</p>
<p>Peanuts are not tree nuts. Peanut allergy is one thing. Tree nut allergy is another. An individual could be allergic to both but it is not a given.</p>
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A person with a really severe allergy probably couldn’t eat in any restaurant at all. A person with a more moderate (apparently) allergy, like my son, will avoid certain kinds of restaurants with a lot of nut ingredients (Vietnamese, for example), and will ask a lot of questions about the food. Many restaurants are sensitive to allergies, and have well-trained staff. A clueless waitstaff–or one that doesn’t speak English well–is another reason to avoid some restaurants. It’s a real hassle, and it’s limiting.</p>
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This formulation leaves out the value to peanut-eating students of living in a community that cares for all its community members, and is willing to make small sacrifices for others. It would be interesting, though, to ask the following questions of college students:
"Some students at the College have life-threatening peanut allergies. The College is studying how to address these allergies. Which of the following approaches would you prefer:
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<p>Of course not everybody gets what they want. </p>
<p>But not getting what you want because of a disability is a special case. We have a special law regarding that issue, and there’s good reason for that law, in my opinion. </p>
<p>In my mind, there’s no question that food allergy qualifies as a disability. It’s just a disability that society hasn’t learned to cope with as skillfully as it copes with certain other disabilities, such as deafness or mobility problems.</p>
<p>I don’t have any food-allergic people in my family, so I don’t have a vested interest here. My interest in this topic comes mainly from having been in college dining halls. I have seen the enormous risk of cross-contamination that’s present in that environment, and it has convinced me that nothing short of removing the allergens from the environment can allow students with life-threatening allergies to eat there. Having ingredient lists does not prevent cross-contamination.</p>