Tag Archives: Allergies

Is a Dead 1st Grader Enough Incentive To Change?

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My wife didn’t say anything.  I walked into the living room and saw on my phone that she had tweeted this:

What?

I said.  She looked at me and said

That is my worst nightmare.

She read parts of the news story.

She was 7.

They had an action plan.

She authorized Benadryl, but they didn’t give it.

She tried to give them an EpiPen, but they refused.

They made her leave it at home.

I responded

What?  Are you kidding me?  You can’t leave it at home!

She shook her head in disbelief, just staring at her phone.

This little girl, Ammaria Johnson had a diagnosed peanut allergy.  She came into contact with them at school, went into Anaphylaxis, and died.  Time was of the essence and they didn’t help her.

There is no excuse today to not understand how serious peanut allergies are.  Many classrooms and schools have gone peanut free and most parents know of a child that has that or another allergy.  Recent findings show that at least 1 in 12 children has a food allergy, and it is probably more, since those with a diagnosis are disproportionately upper middle class and those most likely to have them are underrepresented in the data.  Peanuts are also extremely dangerous because, unlike other allergens, it crumbles easily and travels quickly through the air.  It is very easy to contaminate anything with a single peanut.  It is a very big deal.

For many parents, this is the nightmare.  That our kids don’t really have a chance.  You can’t just instruct children, because they aren’t going to understand it; not really.  How can we truly expect a 7 year-old to make decisions about what to eat when adults have trouble reading warning labels?  How can we expect a 7 year-old to not eat something unwrapped and put in front of her or offered to her by a best friend?  How can we keep our children safe if the response to a tragedy like this is:

Chesterfield schools spokesman Shawn Smith told the paper the girl died of a “pre-existing medical condition.”

Nice job, taking responsibility.  Makes parents feel really safe.

And even the expert consulted for the story, Dr. Dan Atkins mildly opines:

“There are kids who don’t know they’re food allergic until they get into the food,” Atkins told ABC. “In that situation, it would be good to have an EpiPen available.”

“It would be good to have an EpiPen available”?  That’s the response you give?  Maybe we ought to think about having one, ya know, just in case.

EpiPens are portable epinephrine-dispensing de...

Image via Wikipedia

For millions of children, an EpiPen is literally the only thing that will save their lives in an emergency.  This school wouldn’t let the parents leave one there (Red flag, parents! Get your kid into a different school!).  An expert in the field suggests we should probably keep a couple on hand.  Here’s what I say:

Train everybody in the flipping school like this is life and death!  Train students!  You put the kids through “stranger danger” training in Kindergarten, the least you can do is help them understand that this is a big deal!  Treat allergies like the epidemic they are!

Of course, for me, this isn’t an academic exercise.  My daughter is allergic to peanuts.  I’ve had to administer epinephrine through an EpiPen.  She has gone into Anaphylaxis because a friend gave her peanut butter hidden in her room and from a cake baked on shared equipment.  We’ve watched and we’ve trained her.  She’s 3.5 years old.  How vigilant do we have to be?  How much do we have to do before people wake up?  At what point does the world stop thinking about CYA with legal disclaimers and means of excluding children and others with life-threatening allergies and think one simple thought:

Maybe we shouldn’t be responsible for a child’s death.

[See also an earlier writing of mine about allergies called "Maybe I'm Allergic to Your Intolerance".  And, in a moment that can only be called a synchronicity, my daughter had me read The Princess and the Peanut Allergy to her tonight as I was in the middle of writing this post.]

Maybe I’m Allergic to Your Intolerance

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My daughter is allergic to peanuts.

I have to confess that the moment I found out, I was upset. Not for her, but for me. Her allergy would deprive me of one of my favorite foods: peanut butter. I got over that (mostly) and we try very hard to be careful for her sake.One of her favorite books, which we read today is The Princess and the Peanut Allergy. It is the story of two best friends fighting over a birthday cake. The one with the birthday wants to have her favorite cake and her best friend there at the same time. The friend wants to be included, but knows she can’t because of her allergy. In the end, the birthday girl chooses her friend over peanuts. It is sweet and the kind of decision I want my daughter to make on behalf of other people.

Reading it today, brought another idea up. One more to do with my selfish wish for peanut butter than it does the generous spirit of the book. The context of allergies actually means life-and-death stuff: not some simple question about politics du jour. Because here is the bigger question: should we accommodate the other or should we imprison them in their homes? Is your right to carelessness and selfishness more important than my daughter’s right to live normally and safely?

We brush this off so easily, making the parents of children with allergies work incredibly hard at determining ingredients of food and providing a safe environment for our children. And most of us get really tired of being the ones advocating for our kids constantly and having to deprive them of church dinners or parties simply because they can’t eat what is being served.

Isn’t safety more important?

The Mars Co., makers of M&Ms, is a great big company and makes a whole lot of money. But now we can’t buy any M&Ms because they all bear the warning that they may contain peanuts. Mars is a big enough company to have regular M&Ms produced in a different space from the peanut and peanut butter ones. Easy solution. But instead, we are satisfied with a warning on the package and new responsibility for the parents: “No, Baby Girl, you can’t have M&Ms anymore. I know they’re your favorite.”

The applications for this callous understanding of freedom are endless:

  • the “need” to pass concealed handgun laws and then open-carry laws so that you have the right to make everyone around you afraid;
  • the “importance” of seeing fairness as only applying to academic-based scholarships, which deprive needy, inner-city youth from even going to college simply because rich kids got better grades;
  • allowing insurance companies to deprive coverage to anyone for any reason at all after taking their money;

and these are just the tip of the iceberg.

Some conservatives may try to spin this the other way or simply disregard me as the usual liberal calling for tolerance. So here’s the deal: it is about power. People without allergies are in a position of power and dominance over people with them. My daughter didn’t choose this. GOD isn’t punishing her because of our choices (remember, GOD promised David GOD wouldn’t do that). Like Superman, she has a weakness. So show some compassion! Don’t put peanuts in everything. It’s that simple. It is getting so easy to avoid the common allergens, that we no longer have the excuse not to accommodate them.

So quit complaining about your gun rights or your right to deprive others of healthcare or the rights of oil companies to rob you or the rights of drug companies to lie to you or use some example of some white person losing a promotion that was “theirs” to some “undeserving” minority. Just answer why is that more important than safety, health, and well-being?

Why is your individual right more important than the lives of thousands or millions of people?
[Note: this was originally published last spring here on my other blog.  It is fitting to publish it here in light of today's post.]