Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Information – Online TV and Podcast Blog

Hi Rachael,

I am writing to comment on the article printed in the Sunday Mail 20/11/05.

Firstly I would like to say that I empathise with you, having a child
with anaphylaxis myself. I am sure we would all agree that the health
and safety of our children is paramount, whether they have anaphylaxis
or not. The primative instinct of protection is the primary focus for
all parents, and I applaude your attempts to protect the safety of your
child.

As you would know, anaphylaxis is a severe and life threatening reaction
to an ‘foreign’ body that the immune systen mistakenly believes to be a
threat. This could be anything, not just nuts as stated in the article –
I am sure you were misquoted there.

My 5 year old son is dairy and egg anaphylactic, and to a lesser extent
allergic to peanuts and a wide variety of other foodstuffs. His life is
no more or no less important than those people with pea/nut anaphylaxis.
How can there be legislation to protect the pea/nut allergic and nothing
for the thousands who could die from coming into contact with the
endless other things that their bodies may react to? You can’t legislate
against everything. Yes, it is unfair. Yes, our lives are more
complicated than others. Yes, we have so much to worry about every
minute of every day, I would never pretend there is no difficulty living
with food-induced anaphylaxis.

It would be quite discriminatory for schools to choose who they will
protect and who they will cross their fingers for, based on what kids
are allergic to. Just like you, we have to deal with the fact our boy
may die if he comes into contact with any foods or drinks containing the
offending allergen, but can you imagine a school banning every dairy or
egg product from their grounds? This certainly wasn’t offered by our
school for next year when we were interviewing them. If you think it
possible, please tell us how. We wanted to change the world but have
realised our job is to prepare our son to live in the world as we know it.

At the Kindy/Preschool where our son has attended for the last two
years, no food bans were in place, and never did we ask for any. There
was, however, excellent teacher/parent communication, extensive teacher
training, student training, and management strategies to reduce the risk
of exposure. We are grateful to proclaim that there have been no
incidences in the two years, even with almost every child having butter,
yoghurt, cheese dips, milk and peanut butter on a daily basis. With 2
weeks to go though, we still hold our breath everytime the phone rings
on those 3 preschool days. But that is the life we live. We deal with it
the best way we can.

The best skills we can teach our son is the ability to look out for
himself, have excellent judgement, good communication and an
understanding of his life-long condition, because he will have it for
life, not just during school hours. The world is filled with nuts,
dairy, eggs, fruit, bees…….. before school, after school, at parks,
beaches, shopping centres, parties, sleepovers etc. It can’t be
eliminated, but we can teach our children to live with what they have
been dealt. It is not up to the government, schools or anyone else. At
the end of the day you can’t trust anyone to do their job properly but
yourself. Legalised accountability can never ensure the safety of our
children. Educating our loved ones can.

The anaphylaxis support group, Anaphylaxis Australia do not advocate
banning foods from school. They recognise that people can forget about
the ban, blatantly defy the ban or genuinely not realise the food/drink
contains the allergen. Teachers and admin can hide behind a false sense
of comfort thinking that noone has the banned product at school, and not
actively look for any signs of a reaction, as there ‘shouldn’t’ be any
allergen at school. I know this happens, as it has happened to an
aquaintance of mine, and at the preschool of a friend. So, I do urge
you, if your school of choice does ban peanuts, that they be constantly
reminded to be on the lookout for possible reactions, as there are never
any guarantees.

I do commend you for getting the difficulties of raising children with
anaphylaxis out to the masses, and the problems our kids face on a daily
basis. Thank you.

I do want to wish you a very safe and happy Christmas. I hope it is an
enjoyable time for you all, as stress-free and as trouble-free as possible!

Sincerely,
Melanie

The following is an article that was printed in our local Australian – Queensland publication – The Sunday Mail on 20 Nov 2005 by Jeessica Lawrence.

This got my wifes back up so much that she emailed the mother (whom we left her email address out) to express our views on the topic. I’ll add it to the blog shortly.

A letter to the editor was also sent but no response from The Sunday Mail has been forthcoming as yet. I’ll keep you all posted.

Aaron

–

A Brisbane mother whose son could die if exposed to peanuts wants them banned from schools.

Rachael Munro said children who had anaphylaxis – potentially fatal allergic reaction to nuts – were at risk of dying within minutes if exposed to even a minute amount.

Ms Munro, whose son Jordan, 3, has an acute allergy, said teachers and staff needed training to save a child who asphyxiated.

Jordan must carry an Epi-pen on him at all times. It must be stabbed into his leg if he shows signs of swelling or asphyxiation.

“If teachers or staff can’t find that pen within five minutes he would die” said Ms Munro, from Wishart.

Peanut allergy has become one of the fastest growing allergic afflictions in Australia, with one in 100 people at risk – double the rate 10 years ago.

Several Queensland schools, including Holand Park State in Brisbane, already have banned them from canteens and ask parents not to include nuts or peanut butter in lunch boxes.

“Parents have been very understanding. We’ve had 100 percent support”, principle Tony Gribbin said.

More than 200 people signed a petition started by Ms Munro (munrocreative@bsccp.com) and she plans to take her campain to Premier Peter Beattie.

Medical Advisory Board for Anaphylaxis Australia chairman Dr John Ruhno said a shift toward roasting peanuts was thought to be responsible for the rise in allergies because it increase the amount of allergen.

But he stopped short for calling for nuts to be banned from schools.

“A voluntary ban would be a good thing but as soon as you start legislating you need to have the peanut police,” he said.

“We need to have a progam in place to actually teach the teachers to regonise what anaphylaxis is and to use adrenalin.”

A spokesman for Education Queensland said schools managed students with allergies on an individual basis, on the advice of the student’s doctor.

The spokesman said medical experts had not recommended a blanket ban.

So much has happened since my last diary, I will have to make a list of the topics to ensure I don’t forget what I want to write about!

The most important events would have to be the kids’ birthdays. Just recently the kids turned 5 and 3. Declan has mapped out his party themes, up until his tenth birthday. For his fifth he was only ever going to have a pirate party. So a pirate party was had. Dairy-free, egg-free and peanut-free……of course!! The best parties are those that we can ALL relax and enjoy. (It’s funny how the definition of “relax” encompasses running around non-stop for two hours coordinating a bunch of kids to play games, walk planks, eat food, find treasure, keep kids hydrated, birthday cake for everyone, making sure everyone gets their goodie bags……) I am of course using the term ‘relax’ in reference to allergens not being at a party, therefore not having to be on red alert!!!

We all had a great time preparing for the party. We spents weeks beforehand painting, drawing, scrunching paper and many other crafty things in order to have a swashbuckling pirate party. Mateys were summoned from all over the seas and came dressed in shipwrecked, piratey attire. They earned their pirate gear by performing a few tasks in order to prove themselves worthy of joining Captain Declan’s crew. They had to walk the plank, pin the patch on the pirate, sword practice (using balloon swords to pop bubbles that we blew for them), cannon ball pop (where they had a black balloon tied to their ankle with string and had to pop others whilst protecting their own), sink the ship (two fridge boxes cut to look like ships and the kids stand in them in two teams and throw “cannon balls” into the others ship…..we did this several times as it was great fun and looked fantastic, balls flying everywhere) and of course we did a treasure hunt, but we couldn’t do that without decorating our telescopes first (paper towel rolls painted black and the kids put star stickers all over them).

We kept the food simple as they were all too busy playing the games to be bothered to eat too much. They feasted on “grub” (cheerios, sausage rolls and chips) and “kiddie grog” (lemonade, water or red ‘wine’ cordial). The cake looked great. I made a plain sponge slab, and decorated it to look like an island. I placed granulated sugar all around the edge to look like sand, put a couple of plastic pirates on the island beside a plastic tree, and dug out a bit of cake so it looked like the pirates dug it up looking for the treasure. I placed a piece of dairy, nut, egg-free chocolate in the whole for the treasure chest. It was really cute.

The kids and parents enjoyed themselves. I loved two things in particular about the party. The first was watching my kids enjoy the fun and festivities of a birthday party in a safe environment, the second was that all the guests enjoyed themselves equally as much….all without dairy, eggs and peanuts. WOW!!….who would have thought huh!