Unamusing moral dilemma-y thing

About allergies.. whilst some are from a genetic disposition, most common ones have evolved from the eating habits since very young.  Being mollycoddled as a toddler brings on potentially more chances of developing an allergy.    They say the best treatment for hay fever is to spend a lot more time outdoors so your immune system can develop against the allergens.   Gluten allergies used to be very rare and affected mostly those who had Celiac disease.  Now everyone's got it.

As a young child I often enjoyed making mud pies...I doubt many would be allowed to get down and dirty like that nowadays.     

Joe please don't dismiss the need for the "massive legislation" [sic] quite so lightly.  I've been in a position where an employer has, several times exploited my dyslexia to my detriment.  Ultimately I was forced into a position of having to take a case against them using the provisions of the legislation.  Without that legislation the permanent damage to my quality of life would have been considerably greater.

I do accept that deaths form anaphalaxis are, thankfully, extremely rare, and, more recently, the rate has been greatly reduced by the introduction of the epipen which buys someone enough time to get to A&E (= ER in the US).  However in the case of the nursery school, unfortunately the child may also have too low a body mass to be prescribed an epipen.

On the other had the airline should have checked to ensure that no one on the flight is allergic to dogs (but the inconvenience of the noise is minor, and dependant on the service that the dog performs for the lady in question, in comparison to the inconvenience or threat to her of not having her dog, it may pale into insignificance).

My grandsons nursery school is 'nut free',   they say its to avoid the risk of an allergy 'accident' thats needed with so many kids with one allergy or other these days.       

100% for TobyJug,  exposure at early age seems to be the thing thats missing.  When I was a kid we did not seem to have allergy affected kids - or at least none that I can recall.   Along with everyone else I ate dirt & all the bugs, bacteria & unmentionables all kids stuff in their mouths at any opportunity, indoors or outdoors or anywhere.   My kids did the same & they the same with their kids & we are an allergy free family.    Not saying its answer to it all,  but exposure too & resultant immunity goes hand in hand,  a seasonal flue 'jab' is doing just that.   

joerand posted:

Interesting to me how folks tend to latch onto the peanut allergy and its potential severity. I was unaware at the time, but learned from the circumstance I described above that allergic reactions to peanuts can be potentially life threatening. At the same time, serious anaphylaxis is rare. The (US) Center For Disease Control documented 13 deaths attributable to peanut allergies between 1996 and 2006, so perhaps less a concern than often sensationalized by the notion of reaction to vapors, especially given the prevalence of peanuts and their by-products in the food chain. By comparison, 374 people in the US were killed by lightning strikes between 1995 and 2000. Still good to take all measures, especially those preventable. At some point the peanut allergic child will have to attend elementary school, and I've yet to hear of a school that banned PB&J sandwiches. A bee sting on the playground can induce anaphylaxis, but I suppose that is considered unpreventable.

 

Hi Joe,

My son has a severe nut allergy although funnily enough not to peanuts but to some tree nuts particularly hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans. If he eats them or they touch his lips he suffers anaphylaxis and his throat closes up. He has in the past been susceptible to pollen from hazelnut trees if he is directly exposed (e.g., once pulled a sweatshirt off over his face after playing in a garden with a hazelnut tree).  On five occasions in his 15 years he has had to have adrenaline (initially by syringe from ambulance, subsequently via epipen which he always carries). He is a bright and reasonably sensitive child and at the age of about ten asked us "do my allergies mean I am more likely to die than most people?". You can imagine that has something of an effect on your character - he is a little cautious and risk averse.

He was born with quite a few allergies (including dairy, fish), required special food and formula, etc has been through extensive testing to narrow the allergens that are a risk to him. Many he has grown out of but his remaining nut allergies are expected to stay with him now. 

We live in the UK and so I can't comment on the US situation but over his life the general awareness of anaphylaxis has got much better - these days we find restaurants for example are completely unsurprised when we start by explaining his allergy and ask what on the menu is suitable. Contrary to what you say about the US it is now very common in the UK for schools and nurseries to be nut free environments. When he first started school they did consider asking him to eat is lunch in a separate room but the Head quickly decided that the small inconvenience of denying children nuts at lunchtime was better than socially excluding our son. Our experience is that this is the stance that has been taken by almost all schools in the UK.

As for the scale of the risk on a national level I don't have statistics but we are obviously quite sensitive to the occasional news reports of anaphylaxis deaths. There was a case recently when a restauranteur was convicted of manslaughter because of a second offence when he lied about the contents of a dish when someone explained their nut allergy. On the first occasion a client was hospitalised. Sadly the second client died.  

Fortunately our boy is not sensitive to airborne oils etc unlike those sufferers who need an aircraft to be clear of nuts. He is now able to handle himself in environments with nuts (when he was younger he found bowls of nuts on tables to be quite stressful - understandable I think). It really doesn't effect him socially. When he was young he did get disinvited from some parties and playdates when we explained about his allergies. Some parents just couldn't cope. You can imagine that was quite hard. 

I guess my point in writing this is to try to give a bit more context to the challenges in having this condition and perhaps allow you to empathise with the child and their parents. We have found that overwhelmingly people are kind and considerate and regard the small steps they need to take to keep our son safe as a minor inconvenience given his situation.

I probably should have said - none of the incidents came from actually eating a nut but from traces or unknown ingredients in a food.

Maybe there's a generational aspect at play here, whereby it's easy to suggest that if kids were allowed to eat "dirt, bugs, bacteria and all the unmentionables", like we did, then the incidence of allergies might well be much lower.

I do wonder, however, if the problem is less what kids don't get to eat, and rather what they do eat?

The mindset that it's quicker and easier to feed a busy family using processed foods, with their inherent chemical soup of ingredients, rather than cooking from scratch with natural products, may be difficult to shift, but I do feel that much needed research into this aspect is overdue.

At the moment, we simply seem to be accepting of a situation whereby allergies in kids is almost the norm, and the solution is to place ever more onerous responsibilities on settings such as nurseries and schools. 

We obviously think about that and we are not clean freaks...

I think in our son's case it was genetic - as I said he was born with a load of allergies. My side of the family have allergies, although fairly mild. My wife's side has quite a lot of eczema and asthma which are allergic conditions.

I have seen some suggestions that particulate air pollution might be overstimulating immune response (essentially that is what allergies are - your bodies immune system overreacts, once it is in a heightened state you are more susceptible to other reactions, a form of sensitisation).    

Mike-B posted:

My grandsons nursery school is 'nut free',   they say its to avoid the risk of an allergy 'accident' thats needed with so many kids with one allergy or other these days.       

100% for TobyJug,  exposure at early age seems to be the thing thats missing.  When I was a kid we did not seem to have allergy affected kids - or at least none that I can recall.   Along with everyone else I ate dirt & all the bugs, bacteria & unmentionables all kids stuff in their mouths at any opportunity, indoors or outdoors or anywhere.   My kids did the same & they the same with their kids & we are an allergy free family.    Not saying its answer to it all,  but exposure too & resultant immunity goes hand in hand,  a seasonal flue 'jab' is doing just that.   

I happily ate nuts when I was young and then suddenly when I was 17 I ate a nutty toffee and ended up being rushed to hospital and pumped full of adrenaline. So early exposure certainly wouldn’t be a universal answer. 

My other half suddenly developed an allergy to oranges (not citrus in general just specifically oranges!) in her early 50's, so age necessarily a factor.  In fact developing allergies in adult life isn't that uncommon.

Oranges - how odd. What about clementines, tangerines and satsumas? I’d be so fed up not to be able to eat oranges. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

So early exposure certainly wouldn’t be a universal answer. 

.......   & why I said "not saying its answer to it all".  I have a cousin who developed a whole raft of allergies in her twenties,  it started after her 2nd child & its believed that triggered it.      And I have a neighbour who's son is going through a treatment of controlled allergy exposure after becoming animal allergy affected in his teens.    But I really don't remember in my time at school & early teens being aware of anyone with an allergy problem.

We haven't worked out the genetics of it yet, but it seems to be either C.reticulata or C.maxima that's the problem.  C.medica and C.micrantha have been exonerated!

The one we need to test is C.maxima (grapefriut), but I can't get her to raise the courage to try it!  We may find out over Christmas if it's C.reticulata (ancestral type mandarin) that's the problem, as she's vapour sensitive.  One thing that makes it more difficult to pin down is that, in her case, it causes a slow developing systemic inflammatory condition (developing over a period of 6 to 24 hours) that persists for the next 72 hours.

Yes people can develop allergies. And one piece of research I cane across a few years ago postulated that the presence of peanut oil in creams to ease sore nipples of nursing mothers may have been a factor in a sudden sharp rise in peanut allergies.

It is important not to confuse allergy and hypersensitivity. True allergies can result in potentially fatal anaphyllactic shock. Sensitivities to various substances can make people ill, sometimes very ill, but not usually with a risk of rapid fatal reaction. For example, gluten sensitivity, as in coeliac disease, is not an allergy, and exposure to a trace level does not risk killing the individual. Ditto sulphur dioxide preservative in food. But true allergies, of which nuts and bee stings are among the most common, do indeed carry that risk.

. 

Innocent Bystander posted:

Yes people can develop allergies. And one piece of research I cane across a few years ago postulated that the presence of peanut oil in creams to ease sore nipples of nursing mothers may have been a factor in a sudden sharp rise in peanut allergies.

It is important not to confuse allergy and hypersensitivity. True allergies can result in potentially fatal anaphyllactic shock. Sensitivities to various substances can make people ill, sometimes very ill, but not usually with a risk of rapid fatal reaction. For example, gluten sensitivity, as in coeliac disease, is not an allergy, and exposure to a trace level does not risk killing the individual. Ditto sulphur dioxide preservative in food. But true allergies, of which nuts and bee stings are among the most common, do indeed carry that risk.

Actually not all true allergies result in anaphylaxis.  To be an allergy all that's needed is to induce an excessive allergen-antigen response from the body.

I'm allergic to cephalosporins - I go pink and blotchy, starting at the extremities (but oddly I'm not allergic to penicillins, which shows it's not the more common allergic reaction to the β-lactam ring).

Huge posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

Yes people can develop allergies. And one piece of research I cane across a few years ago postulated that the presence of peanut oil in creams to ease sore nipples of nursing mothers may have been a factor in a sudden sharp rise in peanut allergies.

It is important not to confuse allergy and hypersensitivity. True allergies can result in potentially fatal anaphyllactic shock. Sensitivities to various substances can make people ill, sometimes very ill, but not usually with a risk of rapid fatal reaction. For example, gluten sensitivity, as in coeliac disease, is not an allergy, and exposure to a trace level does not risk killing the individual. Ditto sulphur dioxide preservative in food. But true allergies, of which nuts and bee stings are among the most common, do indeed carry that risk.

. 

Actually not all true allergies result in anaphylaxis.  To be an allergy all that's needed is to induce an excessive allergen-antigen response from the body.

I'm allergic to cephalosporins - I go pink and blotchy, starting at the extremities (but oddly I'm not allergic to penicillins, which shows it's not the more common allergic reaction to the β-lactam ring).

Indeed - and I didn't mean to suggest that all true allergies do result in anaphylaxis, rather that other sensitivities don't.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Huge posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

Yes people can develop allergies. And one piece of research I cane across a few years ago postulated that the presence of peanut oil in creams to ease sore nipples of nursing mothers may have been a factor in a sudden sharp rise in peanut allergies.

It is important not to confuse allergy and hypersensitivity. True allergies can result in potentially fatal anaphyllactic shock. Sensitivities to various substances can make people ill, sometimes very ill, but not usually with a risk of rapid fatal reaction. For example, gluten sensitivity, as in coeliac disease, is not an allergy, and exposure to a trace level does not risk killing the individual. Ditto sulphur dioxide preservative in food. But true allergies, of which nuts and bee stings are among the most common, do indeed carry that risk.

. 

Actually not all true allergies result in anaphylaxis.  To be an allergy all that's needed is to induce an excessive allergen-antigen response from the body.

I'm allergic to cephalosporins - I go pink and blotchy, starting at the extremities (but oddly I'm not allergic to penicillins, which shows it's not the more common allergic reaction to the β-lactam ring).

Indeed - and I didn't mean to suggest that all true allergies do result in anaphylaxis, rather that other sensitivities don't.

Yes absolutely.

Huge posted:

Clemenza, it does seem as though your condition is to have a pathological lack of empathy!  (Or are you just playing that part?)

Just as an example:
You state "Tourette's does not entitle him to be clueless.", and yet your expressed attitude to this person shows you to apparently be equally clueless as to the impact your lack of empathy has on others.   (Alternatively, are you playing Devil's advocate or maybe attempting humour? - I don't know).

This is why we have the act, to help different people get on without causing excessive friction that harms others.

Huge,

I don't want to discuss the OP's post's content directly, but I just want to let you know that your apparently considered, balanced reply is made completely useless by your unintentional (I hope) use of the word different. Please muse on it a few minutes.

M.

Max_B posted:

Huge posted:

Clemenza, it does seem as though your condition is to have a pathological lack of empathy!  (Or are you just playing that part?)

Just as an example:
You state "Tourette's does not entitle him to be clueless.", and yet your expressed attitude to this person shows you to apparently be equally clueless as to the impact your lack of empathy has on others.   (Alternatively, are you playing Devil's advocate or maybe attempting humour? - I don't know).

This is why we have the act, to help different people get on without causing excessive friction that harms others.

Huge,

I don't want to discuss the OP's post's content directly, but I just want to let you know that your apparently considered, balanced reply is made completely useless by your unintentional (I hope) use of the word different. Please muse on it a few minutes.

M.

Hi Max,

I am pretty sure that the use of the words "different people" mean "people with a wide range of differing conditions", or something like that. It is not used in any derogatory sense at all.

At least, that's how I read it. And to my mind, it most certainly did not render Huge's reply useless or completely useless.

I wonder what Keith Jarrett, who is known for stopping his performance and yelling at the audience because of a mere cough, would say about this moral dilemma..

Don Atkinson posted:

Max_B posted:

Huge posted:

Clemenza, it does seem as though your condition is to have a pathological lack of empathy!  (Or are you just playing that part?)

Just as an example:
You state "Tourette's does not entitle him to be clueless.", and yet your expressed attitude to this person shows you to apparently be equally clueless as to the impact your lack of empathy has on others.   (Alternatively, are you playing Devil's advocate or maybe attempting humour? - I don't know).

This is why we have the act, to help different people get on without causing excessive friction that harms others.

Huge,

I don't want to discuss the OP's post's content directly, but I just want to let you know that your apparently considered, balanced reply is made completely useless by your unintentional (I hope) use of the word different. Please muse on it a few minutes.

M.

Hi Max,

I am pretty sure that the use of the words "different people" mean "people with a wide range of differing conditions", or something like that. It is not used in any derogatory sense at all.

At least, that's how I read it. And to my mind, it most certainly did not render Huge's reply useless or completely useless.

Max, Don, Indeed, I used it to carry two meanings:

First, the obvious meaning of 'people who have a range of differing conditions, circumstances, cultures, religions and states' (and I include myself in that context - in fact I actually have three conditions that are covered as "protected characteristics" under the Equality Act 2010; I certainly do not use it in a manner that is at all derogatory).

Second, that all people are different from each other to some degree or other, and as such consideration should be extended to all even if not required in law; however this consideration applies both ways!

TOBYJUG posted:

About allergies.. whilst some are from a genetic disposition, most common ones have evolved from the eating habits since very young.  Being mollycoddled as a toddler brings on potentially more chances of developing an allergy.    They say the best treatment for hay fever is to spend a lot more time outdoors so your immune system can develop against the allergens.   Gluten allergies used to be very rare and affected mostly those who had Celiac disease.  Now everyone's got it.

As a young child I often enjoyed making mud pies...I doubt many would be allowed to get down and dirty like that nowadays.     

rodwsmith posted:

Concert at the Albert Hall. Almost all solo piano. Bloke next to me is sniffing and throat-clearing - literally - every 10 seconds. Eventually I can almost only hear his sniffing, and it's the music that's getting tuned out for me. During a round of applause, I lean over and say 'could you maybe just blow your nose? Your sniffing is spoiling my enjoyment of this."
Reply: "I'm realy sorry. I have Tourrettes."
Then his girlfriend chips in: "is he having a go at you?" (Which I didn't think I was).

So, is a condition which makes you involuntarily make noises continuously reason not to go (or to be prevented from going) to a concert? Or not? I can't help thinking the sort of Tourrettes that led to someone shouting 'arse' every minute probably would, but where is the line?

I said nothing further. The sniffing continued (as it would). So all that happened was I felt awkward as well as experiencing a less-than-perfectly enjoyable concert. The person behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said she 'agreed with' me, whatever I'm supposed to infer from that.

At least I possibly haven't caught the cold I also feared might be the 'bonus' consequence I suppose.

Well.... As a parent of a child with Tourettes,I have an opinion based on years of experience. This is not a question of morality or ethics. Tics are involuntary. Nobody is under any obligation to ensure you have a "perfectly enjoyable" concert experience. The answer is very easy: If you are not able to enjoy the concert then you can leave. 

Kevin Richardson posted:

The answer is very easy: If you are not able to enjoy the concert then you can leave. 

Thank goodness! At last a definitive word on where society stands with regard to individual rights versus common courtesy. As a somewhat lactose-intolerant individual I'm relieved to know I can enjoy a high lactose dinner before attending my next concert

Kevin Richardson posted:

Well.... As a parent of a child with Tourettes,I have an opinion based on years of experience. This is not a question of morality or ethics. Tics are involuntary. Nobody is under any obligation to ensure you have a "perfectly enjoyable" concert experience. The answer is very easy: If you are not able to enjoy the concert then you can leave. 

It seems these days that debate and discussion in the grey areas of opinion and behaviour are completely out of favour - leading to ridiculous extreme statements, such as above. 

“As a parent of a child ...” you are likely to see a world bent on denying a loved one a right - or privilege. To the extent that you happily deny it to everyone else. 

Who was the winner during the 2011 Wimbledon Finals when crowd and, eventually, players dutifully filed out to leave Frank Lee (and his increasingly moist handkerchief) to snuffle and sneeze through 4 inconclusive hours of tennis inactivity?

JedT posted:

I probably should have said - none of the incidents came from actually eating a nut but from traces or unknown ingredients in a food.

That is an interesting one. I have “life threatening” allergies (aka three “blue light” jobs , and another couple which should have been) to lentils, green peas, chick peas and lupin seeds (though curiously nuts are not a problem).

Having got used to the problem (which really only came to the fore about 20 years ago - although I suffered from hay fever as a child) I do now take a passing interest in food labels. Even so I still get caught out on occasion - the catering company chicken sandwich (“industrial” reconstituted chicken scrapings using gram flour as binding agent), the jar of supermarket Guacamole (40% green pea) and most recently the pub Chilli Burger (vegetable chilli with lentils).