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

I can agree with that, but I don't think the Feds need to be involved.

If your kid has a peanut allergy it is up to you as a parent to get the severity of the allergy assessed and warn local school officials that he is at risk.
That's the the point where you can start telling other kids not to bring peanuts.
The school nurse can be issued an injector for emergencies. The older kids can carry it around. They should be anyway. Peanuts can be sneaky.

A few allergies on a tiny minority of kids shouldn't impact the whole country.

Originally Posted by Crotalus

I can agree with that, but I don't think the Feds need to be involved.

Well, it's thought to fall under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which would require those providing a public service to make reasonable efforts towards accommodating someone's disability. Maybe even moreso, since school is something that kids are actually required to attend.

Originally Posted by Crotalus

If your kid has a peanut allergy it is up to you as a parent to get the severity of the allergy assessed and warn local school officials that he is at risk.
That's the the point where you can start telling other kids not to bring peanuts.

Agreed.

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.