[Sca-cooks] OOP More schools ban Peanut Butter

[Lady Celia]

Nichola said: 
<<I just want to comment on this coming from the schools side.... 
...
We have to take 100% responsibility for these kids while they are in our 
care.  
...
    In a nut free school, teacher has a Hershey bar, (Check the label it 
is there), touches kid with allergy that doesn't have smart parents that 
said anything.... KID DIES....  Do you want to stand in those shoes when 
it comes time to make that phone call?>>

See, that kind of thing is the thing I think that folks miss. I know *I*
didn't consider it until I read the article, and then having done so, it
*completely* freaked me out, because I have been the care giver for toddlers
myself, and there is absolutely *no way*, that if one of them has something
like a peanut butter sandwich, that you can guarantee that every child in
that group isn't going to also be "exposed" to that peanut butter.

Anyone who has seen a 6 year old eat a PB&J sandwich *knows* that the peanut
butter *is* (not might, *will*)end up on everything within reach of that
child.  The table, the chairs, that kid's pants, the kids next to them, etc.
Unless you're going to isolate the kid with the PB&J and then sterilize them
and the entire room that they ate it in, you can't guarantee that another
kid won't end up with PB on their hands or that "cross contamination" won't
occur.  All you had to do was to point that out to me for me to fully
understand why it actually *was* a problem.  I expect that other people
simply don't realize this or can't see it. 

On the other hand, I have a brother who, as a child, was deathly allergic to
strawberries. Not to the extend that they sent him into anaphylactic shock,
but they sent him into such severe asthma attacks that he had to be
hospitalized. To this day I recall the angriest I've ever seen my mother
being the day that she got a note that he had been paddled at school because
he had refused to eat red jello, something that he was forbidden to eat
because it *might* be strawberry and contain "natural flavors". Luckily my
brother feared my mother more than the school administration, because he
wouldn't budge when they didn't believe him that he wasn't allowed to eat
the jello and thought it was just that he didn't want to.  And luckily
things have changed a lot since the days when they fed all the children the
same thing and told them they had to clean their plate. But the fact that
the school still needs to be informed and has to do everything in their
power to protect that child still pertains. 

Celia.