Am I Hysterical?

This salmonella outbreak in peanut products is about to get the best of me.

Most days I just go on my merry way living with the fact that people consider me one of those hysterical peanut people. I don't allow my children to come into contact with peanuts. I don't allow them to eat things from other people's homes. I don't allow them to eat things that have been manufactured in a facility that also manufactures foods containing peanuts. I have a VERY strict comfort zone when it comes to feeding my children - but I've only had to witness anaphylaxis once - the day we found out about the allergy. We haven't had any known exposures or reactions to nuts since. This knowledge that people think I’m hysterical is a price I'm willing to pay in order to keep my children alive.

I know that I'm not crazy - I've seen what anaphylaxis can do to a child. I see the results of the yearly blood tests drawn on my children that says that one of my kids results are literally off the charts. In allergy tests any thing over 0.35 means a child is allergic - anything over a 2.0 means it could be life threatening - BabyB's number is often > 100 - that's all it says - they stop counting when it gets that high.

I read the accounts of the approximately 200 Americans that die each year from reactions to peanuts - a huge percentage of them being children in schools. I read how over 2000 Americans are hospitalized every year because of it. I keep all of this to myself most days because once again - I am aware that the world thinks I'm hysterical.

Now - is the rest of the world considered hysterical because they don't want their children to eat anything that might have salmonella? So far 9 people have died and over 500 people have been hospitalized because of this outbreak.

Some schools have even gone so far as to remove the Smuckers PB&J sandwiches from the menu they normally serve. It's known that these particular products aren't affected by the salmonella - but the schools thought that they didn't want to cause any stress to any of the children or their parents so they took them off the menu. Of course these same schools said that they couldn't possibly take PB&J off the menu in order to keep a few peanut allergic children safe or less stressed. One of the many reasons always stated in these arguments is that some children will eat ONLY peanut butter - these children might go hungry! Gasp! As you can imagine - the thought of a child choosing to not eat anything other than peanut butter who might miss his meal - compared to the fact that other children might actually stop breathing..... that doesn't really impress me much. What is poor little Billy eating now that they have temporarily removed the beloved PB&J? Has he starved yet?

I can't even imagine how these school officials that have made these recent decisions can look some of the parents in the face. You can remove an item from the school menu because it might stress some kids out - but you can't even imagine removing the same item because it can actually kill some of your students? What about the mental health of the allergic kids? There are fewer of them so you just flat out don't care?

The fact that Delta Airlines is making a big public flap about serving peanuts again on their flights because they are based out of Atlanta isn't really helping my mood this week either. My fear is that this will continue until some one actually dies on an airplane. Won't that be so much fun for all those that get to witness it! Then and only then – after having to pay out tons of money because they knew they might kill some one and chose to serve the silly peanuts anyway – then Delta and other airlines will stop serving them on their flights.

My family and a lot of other hysterical peanut folks will just choose to not fly on their airlines until that happens.

I should add as a side note – my family has been very lucky. Our school took PB off the school menu the day we stepped into the school. We didn’t even have to ask much less fight them on it. I only raise these issues because being part of this hysterical peanut community – I read and hear so many stories of parents trying to keep their children safe every day that it breaks my heart.

Plus – my one hope out of this current catastrophe is that the FDA will start figuring out how to force companies to start labeling for possible cross contamination. Since this has all began – they have finally figured out that they have no way of knowing what non-peanut foods might have been contaminated by the salmonella in the peanuts. They are finding out that in many factories it depends on the whim of the shift manager as to what gets ran on what lines that day. So it is very difficult to find out if things got ran on the same lines that salmonella was running on the hour before. Welcome to our hysterical world everyone!