What It Is: A protest being organized in the forum of AllergicLiving.com over an article in Chatelaine magazine that tagged concern over peanut allergies as "mass hysteria."
How You Can Help: The forum features a letter to Chatelaine, a Canadian woman's magazine, protesting the article and sharing the experience of parents who know all too well how serious and scary peanut reactions can be. If you have a child with peanut allergies and are concerned that articles like this one might cause others to take his or her safety less seriously, add your endorsement to the letter by sending your name, city/town/prov or state, and e-mail address (the latter for verification only from Chatelaine's fact-checker and not for publication) to editor@allergicliving.com, with "Magazine letter" in the "Subject" field.
Why It's Worth Checking Out: School peanut bans have made peanut allergies a volatile issue, as a look at comments to some of my peanut posts proves. It's important for those who have direct experience with these allergies to counteract misinformation and misunderstanding with their own personal stories.
Where to Start: Read the Chatelaine article entitled "It's Just Nuts," and then read Allergic Living's response letter.
+ Page of the Day: Food Allergies in the News. +
Thank you so much for posting about this in your blog.
As the mother of a child with multiple life threatening food allergies, I was shocked to read the Chatelaine story.
We all have our opinions with regards to food allergies and schools, but this was not suppose to be an opinion piece. As writers/journalists our job is to gather the information, check and recheck facts, and report back with an unbiased story.
The story is Chatelaine was a poor one at best and has severely hurt and frustrated the food allergy community.
No two children or disabilities or food allergies are the same. (Life threatening food allergies are considered a hidden disability under section 504 and ADA).
One peanut (or other food) allergic child might need a ban due to the severity of his allergies and one might not. But-the law (US) is such that all disabled children in school should receive an equal education and learning environment to that of their non disabled peers.
In short-if a child is so severely allergic that their learning environment and their life is in danger due to allergens-an accommodation needs to be made. That accommodation might mean a ban.
Allergic Living magazine is doing a great service for the food allergy community by writing a response to Chatelaine to open up the lines of communication and to help educate those who need and or want more information.
I encourage those in the community who support this issue to join them.