Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/01/25/new-york-dancer-25-dies-from-peanut-allergy-after-eating-cookies-that-didnt-label-the-peanuts.html
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What a tragedy. Complete perversion of the free market by government. What should happen is that anyone who is sensitive to peanuts should ask the bakery explicitly if there are peanuts, and then make an informed choice based on the answer. If (when) a customer dies, and the bakery doesn’t make changes, then they’re vulnerable to other potential customers making their own informed choice not to buy from them, which would ruin their business. Y’know, capitalism.
Obviously, this is extreme sarcasm to point out how stupid and ghoulish libertarians and other small-government advocates really are. Because the only thing outrageous in this story is how the company isn’t immediately liable for manslaughter, only having to issue a recall.
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I’m old, and I remember that during my childhood peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were ubiquitous, there were always at least a few in the school cafeteria during any given lunch time. Have human allergies evolved over the past 50 or 60 years?
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Or has the survivorship bias been peeled back?
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Thank you! I had to explain to someone why one didn’t see rice allergies in Asia; the people afflicted die so early that they are lumped into general infant mortality.
Something that I read that is also interesting is that there is a vast body of literature with orphans (think Superman, Batman, Dorothy Gale, etc) that has vanished because of better maternal care, seat belts, antibiotics, and other things that keep us alive.
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The NIH has some theories but no definitive explanation:
- The reasons why peanut allergy has become more common may include: i) changes in vaccines particularly the change from cellular to acellular pertussis iii) excessive washing of the skin that could have increased penetration of the skin by peanut proteins iv) attempts to avoid oral peanut.
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I think it’s a literary trope due to lazy writing rather than a reflection of the society that produced it. It’s every bit as common today as it ever was (think Peter Quill, Luke/Leia/Rey Skywalker, Harry Potter, etc).
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The institutions that dealt with orphans have changed. Perhaps we’ll return to the old ways at some point.
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Some randomized trials indicate that that last factor could be huge:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1414850
In retrospect the advice that the American Academy of Pediatrics put out back in 2000 urging parents to avoid peanut exposure until age 3 was probably dead wrong. They have changed those recommendations and now suggest early exposure.
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That’s so sad.
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I’m not sure I quite agree with those examples since orphans tend to show up retro situations such as Star Wars with its definite retro vibe, Harry Potter with its pseudo Victorian vibes, Peter Quill who is literally following the tradition of superheroes being orphans from the 30’s. If you look at sitcoms, there was a broad period of the single parent whose spouse had died; nowadays, the parent would be single because of divorce.
I have a friend that’s in his late 60’s and has had a severe anaphylactic reaction to nuts from early childhood. His parents and sister weren’t allergic but his son has a severe nut allergy while his daughter doesn’t.
My wife has had a severe nut allergy for her whole life; I had to take her to Emerg for a severe reaction after eating in an Asian fusion restaurant. She had specifically warned our server about her allergy.
Interestingly none of these 3 people have an allergic reaction to almonds.
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The peanut allergy kids never made it to school in the first place or they just didn’t show up one day and you didn’t know why.
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The problem with that theory for explaining why peanut allergies are more common today is that the biggest increase in the allergy rate happened over the last 35 years or so and doctors knew what an allergic reaction looked like well before 1990. It really does seem to be a real phenomonon that goes beyond survivorship bias, even if we aren’t sure what the causes are yet.
Eugenics-minded people use the “survivor” theory to suggest the reason we have more people with allergies today is because we didn’t “let nature take its course.” I call this bullshit (not to mention monstrous) and don’t think the data supports it at all.
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I am mildly one of those kids. My step-mother grew up idolizing Elvis and his peanut butter-&-banana sandwiches–which we made for our lunches. Sister was fine but I nearly always got the runs and I never put the two together till years later. Food allergies simply weren’t in the news and for the simple reason that Skippy was content to let confirmation bias play out in their favor but not in ours. That was back when corporate monolith culture was unassailable and, for some people, “great”.
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Should be included on all warning labels.
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Huh, it.seems odd the AAP didn’t make that recommendation until 2017. In 2016 our pediatrician was very serious that peanut butter should be introduced at 6-7 months. I think he suggested it be the 3rd or 4th food? Absolutely no later than 9 months
Perhaps the big change was for kids at risk of developing an allergy. Our kid didn’t fall into that category. Though the pediatrician did say we could introduce it the first time at the office if we were nervous.
My kid’s school isn’t peanut-free, only one lunch table. l won’t send peanut butter to school. The kid loves it, but understands it’s best as an at home food.
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Unfortunately institutions like that can be very slow to update their positions based on new evidence, especially when the new position is 180 degrees opposite of the old one. Scientists are flawed human beings like the rest of us and I’m sure that the people involved in crafting the original guidance were loath to admit, even to themselves, that their past advice was potentially harming children. Sometimes the widespread acceptance of a new scientific theory doesn’t happen until enough of the old guys retire. (Or, at least that my understanding from other scientific fields)
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Similar, my pediatrician in 2014 recommended the peanut butter challenge at 6 months. We did it at the checkup in his office. And yep, there was a reaction. It was scary AF from my perspective but I’m glad we learned in a control environment instead of in the wild.
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