PeanutAllergy.com partnered with news site OpposingViews.com to poll its readers regarding the timely question, "Should peanuts be banned in schools?"

The PeanutAllergy poll ran from May 29 to May 31. A total of 884,207 people responded: 23.4% said yes and the majority, 76.6%, said no.

While the people who responded to this poll seem to come down on the less regulation side, it should not be interpreted as a lack of compassion for children who suffer from these allergies. Communities want to be directly responsible for the care of their children and have customizable strategies for particular children in particular circumstances.

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My Story

As a response to this poll, I thought that I would share my personal experience with the peanut ban movement.

When my youngest started Kindergarten, I attended a parent-teacher meeting in advance of the first day of school. I wasn’t expecting peanuts to figure so prominently in the discussion, but it didn’t take long.

At some point, a mom raised her hand and announced that her daughter had a severe peanut allergy. She would appreciate it if the rest of us would refrain from using tree nuts. The teacher was aware of this student and, in a show of solidarity, spoke about the nut free lunch table and the school’s desire to provide a safe environment. The teacher was sure we would abide by this request.

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Then another mom raised her hand. She had a vegan family and eliminating nut butters wasn’t going to leave much for lunch. She felt the request was unreasonable. Was she being forced to eliminate nut butters from lunches?

The teacher admitted that the school could not currently ban nut products from campus. She wasn’t able to discuss legal obligations and she wasn’t clear on response strategy if there was to be an allergic episode in her classroom.

This conversation was a microcosm of what’s going on all around the country as the hot button issue of whether or not to ban nut products from our classrooms gains momentum.

Arguments for and against peanut bans

Support can be found for both sides of the peanut ban. There are important arguments on the allergy side. Banning nuts will reduce allergy incidents.

Fatal anaphylaxis

occurs most often outside the home where schools and restaurants are unprepared and have done nothing to reduce the possibility of exposure. There are many children who do not know they are allergic and their first allergic episode can be life threatening.

From a simply practical point of view, banning nuts will cause less confusion about where a child is supposed to sit or whether they can or cannot swap certain kinds of food with only some other students. Any social awkwardness a child might experience by being required to sit away from classmates would be avoided. There can also be confusion about who should administer the lifesaving epinephrine. There has been more than one reported death of a student as a result of confusion about who and when to use the drug. Banning peanuts would also reduce the possibility that a student could inadvertently cause the death of another student, or witness the frightening occurrence of anaphylaxis in their classroom.

The most important argument

But the most important argument is that a child might die as a result of exposure to peanuts. All public places are going to have uncontrollable variables; can’t we agree as parents to simply reduce the unknowns at school? Is it really too much to ask to save a child?

The arguments on the non-allergy side include some less serious ones like children not being able to have their favorite sandwich or not being able to satisfy a picky eater. More weighty support comes from arguments about the cost effectiveness of a peanut butter sandwich during economically trying times and the nutritional benefit of the protein packed nut. And while peanut allergies are growing every year, the fact is that less than 1% of all people suffer from them. Most people do grow out of the peanut allergy. Statistics also show a really small number of incidents happen each year.

How serious is the problem?

The CDC reports 88 deaths from allergies (all ages/all allergies) in the last 20 years. The Food Allergy Network believes that the deaths are underreported and the real numbers are closer to 130 people (again all ages/all allergies) die each year. The number of children dying in schools from peanuts is a fraction of a fraction. There are 53,300,000 students in the US; do you disrupt their daily activities, imbue their classroom experience with the threat of a deadly allergic response when the probability of that happening is so minimal? Do we want to make our children responsible for the health, or the life, of one of their classmates? Isn’t that too much to ask?

Sometimes the solution is a lot more simple than an all out ban. In our classroom, the vegan family simply moved to another class.