Health Check: Peanut Panic

Feeding Your FamilyMost of us have gotten used to the no-nuts rule when it come to kids. But if you think no-peanut-butter preschools are extreme, consider the town that evacuated a school bus because a peanut was found on the floor.

According to Nicholas Christakis, a medical sociology professor at Harvard Medical School, the anti-peanut movement has gotten a little out of control. He compares the 150 deaths per year from all allergic reactions combined to the 45,000 deaths per year from automobile accidents, and the 10000 hospitalizations per year for traumatic brain injuries caused by sport activities. And yet, he writes, “We do not see calls to end athletics.” He says the anti-peanut movement is an example of mass psychogenic hysteria (MPI), in which otherwise healthy individuals fall prey to an overwhelming anxiety, usually about some kind of contamination.   

A widespread case of MPI might be all be fine and good if it resulted in a few children’s lives being saved from peanut exposure. But according to Christakis, the lack of peanuts in all of our lives is actually leading to an increase in peanut allergies. A recent British study looked at more than 10,000 children and found that the earlier children were exposed to nuts, the less likely they were to develop an allergy to them. It’s probably too soon to hope for the comeback of those little honey-roasted peanut packs on the airlines, but we can dream, can’t we?

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