Allergies/Sensitivities - The Social Responsibility?

[Medusa]

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?

[Linus]

There can be a huge social responsibility in regards to allergies since many who have allergies, particularly peanut, could die from them. That's pretty serious and I don't think it's a horrible thing for people to adhere to.

I do wonder, however, if some are claiming allergy to certain things because tehy just don't like someone or something (like a woman I knew who claimed a scent allergy and yet, wore the greatest amount of perfume).

[lipstixgal]

Originally Posted by Medusa

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?

All things aside I can relate to the peanut allergy and perfume sensitivity because I have Asthma really bad and perfume bothers me a lot; so I feel for people with sensitivities but as for the school not allowing peanuts there that is another story. Maybe the child who has the allergy can bring their own lunch to school peanut free and so on.

[pinkgeek]

This is such a hard one for me. The academic in me wants everything to be theoretically accessible to all, but the realist in me likes my Chanel and how much do I really want to give up to the minority for the sake of accessibility, not as much as people would prefer I'm sure..

I'm not speaking from a place of not knowing. I've spend most of my life with moderate to severe allergies and I'm self monitoring. If I'm having a bad asthma day I won't go to the cigar bar/party.. I carry an inhaler and I'm not dead yet.. Life is a risk.

In the case of children, I could be wrong, but I think I read something about peanut allergies have increased in the last 15 years. Children are cute, but not the most responsible creatures on earth, so I can see having a peanut free environment to protect kids from themselves however I did survive a childhood of frightfully bad allergies without help from teachers or other people's parents..

Adults.. Meh.. I think they can take care of their own allergies..

Your mileage may vary..

[Rockinonahigh]

Being a life long asthmatic I have reactions that are varied im how they make me feel,I dont mind scents as long as they arent over powering,cant handle any cleaning solotion that had any kind of amonia in it.I deal with pollen all the time,u can bet if there are 100 ppl in a room u can tell who I am from the sniffles,sneezing,wheezing from scents that ppl feel they need to take a bath in.I do appresheate it when ppl dont use heavy smelling things.One thing I stay away from is pesticides used on the farm as it usely is in consentrated form to be diluted for use..I lietraly hibernate when the city sprays for bugs in the summer.I can deal with about anything as long as its in small doses except ammonia,as it will lay me out flat in a blink.

[Diva]

Yes.....well...... it's a tough call.

I don't care for cigarette smoke. An abundance of it makes me sick to my stomach and affects my breathing. People don't smoke in my house, but they can smoke on the terrace. I'm not going to NOT invite someone to my home because they smoke.

However, I've been places/parties where there have been attendees who made the biggest deal out of the smoking/smokers (waving their arms, making a scene by walking to the other side of the yard, etc) when they knew that there would be smoking at said gathering. I dont' get that. If it's such a deal, why bother coming?

I wear cologne, but I don't bathe in it. If I can taste someone's perfume, or smell You before I see You, that's just too much. People need to be sensitive to that.

As a volunteer at Dell Children's Hospital, we are instructed to not wear cologne because the children's health can be compromised by scents. I get that. But in the work place? Take a benedryl and cope.

As far as that child at school.......tough call again. Perhaps home schooling might be an option. But then I also have a difficult time with those angry parents who force their child to carry a picket sign in protest to peanut girl.

[Medusa]

Pinkgeek - I like what you said about self-moderating.

I think in the case of children, I have a much wider berth for making allowances or rules for access. Children do not have a choice as often as adults and are not able to self-care in the same way.
I do think that there has been an increase (thankfully) in access to public education, etc. due to the ADA and can appreciate the little boy or girl who has HIV who is able to attend public school rather than stay home due to other people's fears. Still, I wonder at what point someone else's medical issues become all of our problems.

(grumbling something about how someone told me they were going to sue me right after starting this site because I wouldn't provide her with a "talk to type" software because of her carpal tunnel )

Are we going to get to the point where the little girl who is allergic to sunlight attends public school and, because of her sunlight allergy, 30 other students sit in a windowless, dim environment.
If I were the parent of the sunlight-allergy child, I might say that it's her right to attend school and that the dim lights and windowless environment weren't such a disruption that I thought it would be a "reasonable" accomodation.
If I were the parent of a child in the classrom who did NOT have a sunlight allergy, but because one child did, my child sat in a cavelike environment all day, I might demand that my child be moved to another classroom or ask why one child with an allergy is determining what kind of environment 30 other children have.

So what is reasonable?

If it is a life-threatening allergy, is it up to the person who has it to protect themselves or is it reasonable to ask other people to change their behaviors (within reason)?

I'll also fully admit that this article touched a nerve with me when mentioning the accessability increase in the public education system and made reference to special needs children being placed in "regular" classrooms. Perhaps that will be another thread (I have very strong opinions there)

[Kobi]

Seeing some allergies can be deadly, I favor reasonable accomodations.
The definition of reasonable is up for grabs.

For example, accomodating a peanut allergy on an airplane is more reasonable to me than going overboard at a school. On an airplane, even with an epi-pen, you dont have immediate access to emergency services. Thus, an accommodation seems reasonable. Then again, you cant stop people from bringing there own peanut butter crackers or trail mix on board.

If a kid at a school has such a sensitivity that all peanuts and peanut vapors in a 10 mile radius (exaggeration here)need to be eliminated, it is reasonable for your child to be tutored at home or attend school via teleconferencing. That seems to be a reasonable compromise.

On the other hand, there is a big difference between a true severe allergy and something that may trigger an annoying reaction. For example, flowery perfumes can trigger an allergic response in me but it wont kill me. I usually remove myself from the environment and problem is solved.

For someone in an apartment building to request everyone stop using anything scented is unreasonable to me.

Common sense, when it comes to adults, seems warranted. Marinating in your favorite scent may not be pleasing to others, or appropriate in an enclosed space....use your judgement.

[julieisafemme]

My child has a peanut allergy. We carry and epipen and Benadryl. I worry about it a lot in places where I am not able to control things. My child has a mild peanut allergy but the sneaky things about peanuts is that there is always a possibility she could have anaphalactic reaction and die.

Another child in her class has a *severe* peanut allergy as well as allergies to many other things. Our class has a list of things that the children cannot have in their lunches. It is also a vegetarian kosher campus!! So there are a lot of restrictions on what children can bring for lunch. None of this bothers me a bit! We are talking about the lives of these children! Not to mention the lack of anxiety they and the parents feel knowing that their child is in a safe environment. This is a private school. What if this parent could not afford to pay for a private school? What if her child had to attend public school and had a lot of angry people on top of worrying about the safety of her child? I don't think home schooling should be an alternative to an accomodation that a school can make. What about a child who has special needs of some other sort?

I just hope people understand that peanut allergies are deadly. They can come on so quickly that even with an epipen a child can die. The balance between that and a parent who wants to pack a penaut butter sandwhich for their child just does not make sense to me.

[Medusa]

Just curious - Someone posted a sign at work in the break area that we can no longer heat up anything in the microwave that contains garlic due to someone's allergy.

Thoughts on that? Is that fair to the people who want to eat garlic or should they suck it up since someone else could become sick?

[Blade]

I'd never heard of a garlic allergy, so this was new to me so I googled it.
I think the last sentence is significant. I didn't read anything about allergies from smelling garlic, it says to remove it from your diet.

http://www.ehow.com/way_5194678_garl...llergies_.html original article

While allergies to garlic are rare, there are people who are intolerant to the spice. Using garlic to combat seasonal allergies may not be the best course of action. Garlic allergy symptoms tend to be mild, so most individuals may not be aware that they are even sensitive. It is best to check with a physician who can test you for a garlic allergy, to ensure that you are not creating more harm to your immune system.

Garlic allergies symptoms include gastrointestinal disruptions, stuffy noses, red, itchy rashes and coughing. Again, garlic allergies tend to be mild, to the point of being attributed to another condition. If an individual does have an allergy to garlic or is remotely sensitive, garlic should be removed from the diet.

[Hack]

I work for a government agency that has a lot of public meetings. As the press officer, I put out press releases or media advisories about most of the meetings. We take accessibility very seriously, and are careful to make sure the meeting locations are accessible for persons with disabilities. We used to include a requirement that our meeting spaces be "scent-free," but we took an inordinate amount of public ridicule for it that we no longer include that language in our public information about meetings. I mean, I was getting calls from the media about, bloggers who follow our agency were trashing us as overly-PC, considering most of the audience for our meetings are men who smell like Old Spice, stale beer and fish guts.

I get bronchitis if I am in an enclosed space with cigarette smoke for too long. I am careful to avoid those situations. I can understand peanut allergies and being hyper-vigilant with kids. But I often wonder ... I would be hard-pressed to name one kid I ever went to school with back in the 1970s and early 1980s who had a peanut allergy. Is this a fairly new thing (the last 15 years or so?) or did I just grow up in such a small town that we didn't have a peanut allergy sufferer?

Jake

[Rockinonahigh]

We have a new receptionist at work,omg,she takes a bath in whatever sents she is wearing,has really big hair,brassy earrings,four inch long nails...not kidding u folks this is real.THe smell of hair spray will gag me in a minit..not normaly but she over uses evrything.Today she said ,sweetie gotta go put in my lips...duhhh says me I swear I never have seen that color lipstik on anyone..holy moley.Needless to say I dont go to the office much.

[suebee]

At times I find that some people say allergy when what they really mean is that a smell bothers them or they're sensitive to it. I'm one of those people. But that sensitivity may mean that I spend the rest of the day in a darkened room with a migraine or sneezing and coughing. Minor - but it sure can ruin my day.

I used to work with special needs kids. I had one little boy - Alex - who had severe food allergies. And not just if he ate certain foods. Often just smelling the food could provoke an anaphalactic reaction. They lived too close to McDonald's. They had to move. They used to go camping. Too many grills with beef on them, so they stayed home. When they went to see the ultra-specialized allergy doctor they had to fly because they couldn't risk having a reaction on a train. The airline had to make sure no beef or peanuts or a dozen other things were in the same cabin as Alex - or leftover smells of any of those things. God bless them - they were fabulous to deal with. I was involved in trying to make arrangements for Alex to go to school. Teleconferencing was an option, but that would mean he would never have any socialization other than his siblings. The school board was fabulous too. I didn't get to see how it turned out because I changed jobs and cities. But I thought that the little guy deserved the chance to go to school, because - quite frankly - I didn't think he would live long. Even when he was at the hospital he was exposed to life-threatening allergens - and this even though everyone was supposed to be informed and arrangements made accordingly.

So when I think of allergies I think of Alex, and I wonder if he's still alive and hope that he's having, or had the best quality life possible. I think that's worth a little inconvenience on my part. Sorry if this sounds a little melodramatic, but the changes I'd have to make to accomodate someone with allergies to food, or smells, or most other things for that matter, seem pretty minor compared to the difference it can make to them.

Sue

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by Medusa

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?

Here's the thing: being exposed to certain scents, foods, ect can bring a lot of harm to some people. Not being allowed to wear perfume to work isn't going to hurt anybody. Sally isn't going to drop down dead because she couldn't bathe her stank ass in Anais Anais every day before work, but Sarah certainly COULD drop down dead because Sally was allowed to continue to bathe her stank ass in Anais Anais. Bobby isn't going to die if he can't have PB&J for lunch, but Brandon certainly COULD die if Bobby gets his PB on the table and Brandon accidentally comes in contact with it.

Sarah has the right to have a job. Brandon has the right to get a public education. Sally and Bobby's rights stop where they put Sarah and Brandon in danger.

I sit in the scent free section at work, by the way.

[Mike]

our whole building at work is scent free

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by Mike

our whole building at work is scent free

The job I'm at now is the first one that hasn't been completely scent free. This one has a "low scent" policy (you know, scented deoderant and body wash is okay, but no perfume), and a section set aside where you can't use any scented products.

[Medusa]

Let's revisit!

The "scent free" lady at work has now sent a formal request that all employees be required to eat their lunch in the lunch room rather than eating at their desks while working because she said the smell of food makes her sick.

Is this reasonable to you?

I would say that 80% of the employees on our floor do a "working lunch" and gnosh at their desk rather than eating in the lunch area (which would be too small for everyone to be accomodated at one time). This will have a pretty severe impact on all employees if the company decides to institute this policy. (I dont think they will because most of upper management realizes they get an extra hour a day out of us while we work through our lunches at our desk)

This person has also advocated for a completely "scent free" environment in the common areas and has removed all the air fresheners from the women's restroom. It appears that she is severely allergic to smells or at least severely affected by them.

At what point does a workplace need to accomodate?

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Medusa

Let's revisit!

The "scent free" lady at work has now sent a formal request that all employees be required to eat their lunch in the lunch room rather than eating at their desks while working because she said the smell of food makes her sick.

Is this reasonable to you?

I would say that 80% of the employees on our floor do a "working lunch" and gnosh at their desk rather than eating in the lunch area (which would be too small for everyone to be accomodated at one time). This will have a pretty severe impact on all employees if the company decides to institute this policy. (I dont think they will because most of upper management realizes they get an extra hour a day out of us while we work through our lunches at our desk)

This person has also advocated for a completely "scent free" environment in the common areas and has removed all the air fresheners from the women's restroom. It appears that she is severely allergic to smells or at least severely affected by them.

At what point does a workplace need to accomodate?

At the point where her sensitivities become a detriment to the productivity of the rest of the employees. At which time she may get sent to a company doctor. Sounds like she needs to reevaluate her employment in that environment.

[LaneyDoll]

Originally Posted by julieisafemme

My child has a peanut allergy. We carry and epipen and Benadryl. I worry about it a lot in places where I am not able to control things. My child has a mild peanut allergy but the sneaky things about peanuts is that there is always a possibility she could have anaphalactic reaction and die.

Another child in her class has a *severe* peanut allergy as well as allergies to many other things. Our class has a list of things that the children cannot have in their lunches. It is also a vegetarian kosher campus!! So there are a lot of restrictions on what children can bring for lunch. None of this bothers me a bit! We are talking about the lives of these children! Not to mention the lack of anxiety they and the parents feel knowing that their child is in a safe environment. This is a private school. What if this parent could not afford to pay for a private school? What if her child had to attend public school and had a lot of angry people on top of worrying about the safety of her child? I don't think home schooling should be an alternative to an accomodation that a school can make. What about a child who has special needs of some other sort?

I just hope people understand that peanut allergies are deadly. They can come on so quickly that even with an epipen a child can die. The balance between that and a parent who wants to pack a penaut butter sandwhich for their child just does not make sense to me.

Well said!

I would hate to think that a child died because I sent a PB & J to school and they took a bite of it when my child offered to share.

There are too many rules/regulations and what ifs for me to easily say "it is unfair to ask the entire school to avoid PB."

What if the child left their pen at home or on the bus? Or was on the playground and it was in their backpack/teacher's desk?

These are children not adults. These are children who are required to attend school not an adult who opts to expose themselves to an allergy. It is not like someone who complains about going to a smoky bar despite an allergy to cigarette smoke. I am allergic to smoke and I go out and I know it will make me feel bad. But it was my choice to go.

Private school is not always an option; neither is home schooling. My boss home schools and do you have any idea of the expense involved in it? I sure cannot afford it.

If a child wants PB & J so bad for lunch but cannot take it because of an allergy, let them have it for breakfast. No child's life is worth placating a finicky eater.