Thread: This burns my bacon! More nanny state bureaucratic nonesense.

But is it really that important for children to be able to have nut products during school hours? As far as I can tell the restrictions here are generally in primary schools i.e. aged between 4 and 11, so those kids aren't really old enough to really understand every possible issue with their diet and the diet of others where transfer can come from.

I wonder if those who are arguing that its stupid would feel the same way if their child had a serious allergy? Would they take the view that the importance of other people's children being able to eat a PB&J sandwich was sufficiently high to mean that if their child was to come into contact and suffered a severe and fatal reaction, that that would just be the way the cookie crumbled?

As far as epipens go my wife works at a school where one of the teaching assistants has a wide range of serious allergies, there are also kids with nut allergies and bee sting allergies. The school generally has 3 epipens however the teaching assistant had 4 "episodes" in 2 weeks so they ended up "out of stock" of them and were awaiting replacements when the 4th episode happened, thankfully the ambulance was there in 5 minutes.

Also only a handful of staff are trained to use them after all they are teachers, assistants, dinner ladies and cleaners/caretakers not doctors and nurses. It tends to be the teacher and the assistant of the class with the pupil that has the allergy but of course its not necessarily going to be in class that they have the contact.

Just a thought here, what if your 'normal' kid had peanut paste and honey on toast for breakfast, would there not be traces left over on face or hands (even supposedly clean face and hands) in enough quantity to be a potential danger to the allergic kid? I suppose it would all be a bit relative, but would not the potential be there anyway? By banning it at schools, would it not just be a school tryng to cover it's own arse, rather than actually giving a damn about an allergic person?


Mick

Video reports and clips - MSN News UK

Surely there are more pressing things that shouldn't be brought to school? Guns in an 8 year old's backpack for example? We all like guns but what was this kid thinking?

Originally Posted by Sasquatch

*Video reports and clips - MSN News UK

Surely there are more pressing things that shouldn't be brought to school? Guns in an 8 year old's backpack for example? We all like guns but what was this kid thinking?

That's the problem. 8 year old kids don't think. The parent needs to be spending some quality time in the big house.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

That's the problem. 8 year old kids don't think. The parent needs to be spending some quality time in the big house.

Ya, that was my thought as well. I would guess it was a handgun if it was in a backpack, and loaded on top of that. The kid would have had access to it to get it in the backpack and that whole concept is just beyond me...the kid wasn't thinking but obviously the parents weren't either. Hopefully the girl that was accidentally shot is alright.

Originally Posted by ReardenSteel

I guess Spock was wrong then, the needs/wants of the few/one outweigh the needs/wants of the many. I'm not saying give the child an epipen and goodluck with that. My question is, where does it end? So one child has a peanut allergy, so does that means the entire school is now peanut free? One child may not eat any pork products because it's against their religion, so does that mean the school bans pork. When did we start catering to the minority?

Did you even watch Star Trek? The whole point of those movies is that sometimes, the needs/wants of the one do outweigh the needs/wants of the many. And it's a lesson that Spock embraces, and even references again in Star Trek VI, when he tells his protege that "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end."

There's a big difference between banning peanut-based products because you've got a kid who could very likely die if he or she comes into contact with them, and banning pork because you've got a kid whose religion forbids eating pork. Somebody else eating pork doesn't condemn the religious kid to hell, unless they've got some sort of bizarre evangelical interpretation of Islam or Judaism that I've never heard of, and if they did, enforcing that proscription through the schools would amount to establishing a religion, expressly forbidden for State agencies to do.

The definition of "reasonable" in the restrictions and impositions we impose on each other's public activities is always going to be a point of contention between individuals. I can easily see some parents believing that not being able to send their kid to school with a PB&J sandwich for lunch is an unreasonable imposition on them despite the fact that one or more of the kid's classmates would run a substantial risk of death if they came into contact with it. I wouldn't agree with them, and I'm sure the parents of the kids with those kinds of allergies wouldn't agree with them, but that's why it's a point of contention. That's why the definition of "reasonable" is decided democratically and through the bureaucratic process.

I don't think he was talking about Star Trek: Benjamin Spock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dr. Spock on Vietnam!? Hell, that's like me writing a book on lesbian love affairs.

Originally Posted by ReardenSteel

If a child has a severe food allergy, then it's the parents' responsibility to ensure their child has an Epipen, one at home and one at school. As for the last part of your post, that just brings back nightmares of philosophy. Thanks alot.

And Epipen when you cannot let your children take vitamin pills or Tylenol to school!

An Epipen would have to be in a locked area and administered by someone trained
to use it (and was there at all times). Diabetic children have all manner of hoops to jump through.
to manage their blood sugar.

Modern recreational drugs are dangerous as heck. The worst seem to be the most available
but that is yet another rant...

My fundamental problem with schools today is the policy of zero tolerance -- this zero tolerance
program is the foundation of intolerance. Further it minimizes personal responsibility
in contrast to maximizing responsibility. Parents need to participate and not abdicate their
personal responsibility and this requires education of the parents.

perhaps we should not worry about limiting access to bees or milk or peanuts instead encourage their use. thus through natural selection the weaker members will be culled from the herd. Afterall, is that not the law of nature which as we all know is all that matters. before modern medicine we did not have a perception of all these allergy type issues, early in life the kids just died off and thus the herd was stronger. now we have all sorts of ways of increasing lifespan at the detriment to the whole human race, just for the comfort of the few