<p>Sue… there actually are kids that look for it. I was one of them. Apples & peanut butter are a comfort food to me that I eat almost every day. At night, there were so few vegetarian options that a PB&J was about all you could get (with some fruit thrown in). All of our tours included a meal. I think many would notice a lack of peanut butter or if they stayed the night and went for a late-night meal. </p>
<p>I think I said this before, not sure, but when I studied abroad, they highly recommended we bring peanut butter if we like it. It is a staple to many, MANY kids and gives people a hint of home. Half of our participants on my study abroad took peanut butter.</p>
<p>Yes it is but really it’s comparing microns to microns. Even in all respectable research a confidence level of 95% is considered sound. This implies that numerically 5% of anything is not relevant to decision making regarding the rest of the 95%.</p>
<p>No, finance grad, you are completely misinterpreting what a confidence level means. It has nothing to do with whether 5% of a population experiencing anything is “meaningful.” If 5% of the population sneezed after eating peanuts, it would be no big deal. If 5% of the population keeled over and died from being near peanuts, that would be a very big deal. That determination is value based and has nothing to so with statistical significance whatsoever.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl 5% of the population is not at risk of keeling over from peanut allergies do some reasearch first. Or how about just read the whole thread and at least look at the information that has been presented.</p>
<p>Further I was just trying to illustrate to Bay why I was ok with using a higher percentage, it was just an allusion. I have stated his before that uncommon does not mean unimportant. But the uncommon should just be accommodated in reasonable ways instead of banning a common food staple for the vast majority.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl it also bothers me that you choose to let your statistical prowess turn on and off like a switch. Earlier in this thread you said:</p>
<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>However, your more recent statement towards my allusion shows that you have a much better grasp on the way statistics work and that the above statement is obviously flawed and unreasonable for a poster like you (this is not an insult I can tell from your posts that you are very intelligent). Do you just choose to turn your ability on and off if it allows you to make a more inflammatory statement?</p>
<p>Bay - I am all for reasonable accommodation. When Periwinkle posted that site I said I hope the school continues to accommodate students past the ruling’s original 3 year requirement. I also stated that the school brought it on themselves because they were rigid in the past and did not accommodate students accordingly.</p>
<p>The main risk of an expired epi pen would probably be that it was not as effective as a fresh one. Of course, the mother might have been concerned that it was contaminated, like expired milk and would cause harm.</p>
<p>I too, would have done a split second risk/benefit analysis and would no doubt have concluded that the expired epi pen was better than nothing. Of course, that’s easy to say without having been in that position.</p>
<p>EDIT: I now see that the Mom was instructed to refrain from using the expired epi pen. I’m really surprised to read that they would tell her that. It was only 2 months past the date. What a shame.</p>
<p>Has anyone else tried to search for how many people in the US per year die from peanut allergy? The stats seem to be extremely soft, almost non-existent. The only numbers I could find were between 10 - 100 per year. That is out of 300+million people. It is weird that the statistics for a condition that is the most prevalent food allergy and understood to be possibly fatal are hard to find.</p>
<p>My S was home for the Jewish holidays for the past couple of days and reports that apparently a small number of entering freshmen have peanut allergies. Rumor had it that one parent in particular was particularly “well-heeled” and may have had some influence in the decision to ban peanut butter. I’m not sure if I “buy” that part of this.</p>
<p>My son also tried out the “Wow” butter that is being offered as a substitute and said that while the initial taste on the tongue is a peanut butter taste, that evaporates pretty quickly into other strange flavors. He was not a fan and says that he will not be trying the college’s new offering of “Wow” noodles, rather than sesame peanut noodles. He is a vegetarian, which is how all of this started. Up until this year, they had a separate area for peanut butter, which seemed to work well, in the sense that there had not been any incidents involving students who were allergic.</p>
<p>Wow butter is just soybean butter made in a peanut-free facility. So it won’t taste the same as peanut butter, although opinions vary on how good soybean butter tastes.</p>
<p>Of course, there are enough people with soybean allergies that soybeans are also typically listed prominently in the allergen sections of labels.</p>
<p>For the rough approximation of risk described in post #119, I did a search and came up with 75-125 per year. Relative to the approximate number of people with peanut allergies, that seemed to indicate a non-trivial lifetime risk of death from a peanut reaction, but not greater than the lifetime risk of death from motor vehicle crashes or other accidental injuries.</p>
<p>Those numbers are wrong because there is no mandatory reporting or centralized system to track deaths from peanut ingestion. I think it is much worse.</p>
<p>frugaldoctor, you don’t know if the numbers are “wrong” or “right.” You are speculating.</p>
<p>This article points out the flaw in ascribing death in PA sufferers to nut exposure in every instance. It’s sometimes a matter of correlation, not causation.</p>
<p>With regards to the story of the college freshman…maybe it is just unbelievable grief, but if the kid who died after eating a cookie had been carrying epi-pens since he was a kid, how could mom not know peanut allergies could kill her son? </p>
<p>Having gone on more than one college tour over the years, I find it odd when colleges don’t sell bottled water. It always is the hottest day and drinking fountains are not always easy to find for newcomers. If nothing else, than offer it at the admissions office before a tour. </p>
<p>I understand about cutting back on waste, but it has given my pause - what else is banned or discouraged?</p>
<p>Sally305, the reason why I believe the numbers are underreported has to do with Death Certificates. In my state, and one other state I practiced, physicians are limited to a list of causes of deaths that do not include food allergies. I may list shock, but can not list anaphylactic shock or even food allergies as a cause of death in my state. Doctors sometimes struggle with what they list for a patient because they know it isn’t the real cause of death but it is the closest on the limited list. It is conceivable that asthma would be listed for a peanut anaphylaxis or even cerebral anoxia.</p>
<p>Since Death Certificates are our most official and public data, and it is lacking, it is conceivable that the alternatives would seriously be inaccurate. You would have to survey hospitals, families, funeral homes, insurance companies, etc. These sources may be limited by HIPAA laws, lack of knowledge or they themselves may revert back to the incorrect death certificates. </p>
<p>So, that is why I believe these numbers are wrong. You would quickly start clearing the speculation by adding food allergies to the list of causes of death.</p>
<p>That makes sense. I’d imagine that the biggest source of this information is likely to be the media. With so much attention focused on peanut allergies, I would expect many of the deaths to be covered in local papers. The stories of the Sacramento girl and the RI college student made national news. Then there was the girl who died after kissing her boyfriend (this incident is described in the link I posted above), although in her case it was allegedly her asthma that killed her.</p>
<p>I have a daughter who has multiple food allergies - tree nuts, peanuts, soy, shellfish and crossover allergies to most raw fruits and vegetables. </p>
<p>On all the college tours we ask about food and labeling, etc., etc., and it is frustratingly unclear most of the time. So far only one school (Guilford College) had really good labeling and labeling is far more important than exiling offenders like peanut butter. But I say that knowing that there are some people for whom even the fumes can be a bad trigger. For my D and my H, shellfish fumes will instantly cause asthma symptoms and they need to leave whatever the room is, quickly.</p>
<p>I had the same thought. I have had an EpiPen since I was a kid (bee allergy) but have thankfully never had an incident. However, he had his throat close before so it’s not like this was a surprise.</p>