I just saw a little clip on CNN about a school where parents are irritated because they feel their children are being subjected to extra time-consuming rules because there is a little girl at the school with a peanut allergy. They were being asked to wash their hands, keep their lunches outside the room, etc.
Here is the video:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bes...rgy.cnn?hpt=T2
This had me thinking about several incidences I have encountered at work and in social situations where someone will have an allergy of some sort and it has been addressed generally with a blanket policy.
One example I can think of is when I worked for Southwest Airlines years ago in the reservations center, we got calls sometimes from people who said they had a peanut allergy and this meant that flight attendants couldn't serve peanuts to anyone for the entire flight. I also remembering being on a flight later on when someone had a peanut allergy and other passengers were pissed because they couldn't have their peanuts.
Another example I can think of is working on the Femme Collective at the Femme Conferences and receiving communications from people who wanted the area to be scent-free because of their allergies.
Even now, there is a lady in our building who has sent out numerous memos about her perfume allergy and has asked that everyone use non-scented shampoo, deodorant, hand lotion, and has also asked for a "No perfume" rule.
What do you all think? If there is a group of people in a situation and one of them is allergic to something, should the group be sensitive to that and give up their peanuts, perfumes, etc? Or should that person find another way to interact?
One of the things mentioned in the article above is that the school has to conform to the anti-peanut standards because a peanut allergy is considered a disability. I'd like to hear people's thoughts on allergies as disabilities.
What are your thoughts? Who has the social responsibility when an allergy is involved?