From confiscated lunches to nut-free zones to mass evacuations when a peanut is found on the floor...have Americans gone nuts in the attempt to protect children from adverse allergic reactions to nuts? Perhaps, says Harvard professor Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis.
These are among the incidents prompted by what Christakis, professor of medical sociology, Harvard Medical School, and attending physician, Mt. Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, MA, sees as “a gross over-reaction to the magnitude of the threat” food allergies, particularly nut allergies, pose and expressed concern that such strict precautions that prevent accidental exposure to nuts might just be a form of social hysteria. Writing in a commentary in the British Medical Journal, he points out that of the approximately 3.3 million Americans with nut allergies, about 150 die from allergy-related causes each year vs. the 100 people per year who die from lightning, the 45,000 who die in car crashes and the 1,300 who are killed in gun accidents. “There are kids with severe allergies, and they need to be taken seriously,” he says, “but the problem with a disproportionate response is that it feeds the epidemic.”
In addition, says Christakis, limiting exposure to nuts at an early age may be contributing to the problem. The number of children under age 18 with food allergies rose 17% between 1997 and 2007, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some research points to allergen-free environments, including those with limited exposure to nuts and peanuts, as promoting the development of such allergies. He also suggests that diagnostic methods that uncover slight reactions might be fanning the flames.
Still, most allergy experts say caution is advised, especially where younger children are involved. As interviewed in Time, Dr. Robert Wood, chief of the Pediatric Allergy and Immunology department at Johns Hopkins Children's Center says, “We recommend very different approaches between an early preschooler and a late-elementary schooler,” he says. “We view preschool children as being at true risk — sharing food, having messy hands. There are many reactions that occur from those kinds of exposures,” he says. “I think that having peanut-free preschools is a totally reasonable, justifiable thing to do.”
