Anyone want to write to a magazine editor?

[bubbaray]

OK, this could be in the BP, but I'll try to restrain myself. This article on the "myth" of peanut (and other) food allergies is in the December issue of Chatelaine, which is a woman's magazine (kinda like Redbook or GH or similar). Widely circulated.

http://en.chatelaine.com/english/food/article.jsp?content=20091001_150000_0023

Anyone wanna write to the editor (via comment box at the end of the article)? My comment is below -- I also emailed it to the Editor.


I am the mother of two children with food allergies and I can tell you first hand that they are most definitely not a myth. My journey into the world of food allergies started when my youngest was almost 1 year old. She had a severe anaphylactic reaction to salmon and her airway swelled up within 30 seconds of her first taste of salmon. A fire truck, two ambulances and a lights and sirens trip to the ER later, she was diagnosed with severe fish anaphylaxis. Subsequent testing showed that she is also allergic to peanuts. Her older sister was tested at that time and we found out that she is allergic to tree nuts. In the blink of an eye, our whole world changed. Doctors have told us that if my youngest eats, or even breathes, fish again, she could die even if we immediately administered her EpiPen – that is how severe her allergy is to fish.

Food allergies are not a myth. They are the unfortunate reality for many families. To call food allergies a myth, not only in an article but on your COVER, has set us back decades.

I won’t be renewing my subscription – this issue was my last (how ironic is that).

[MamaMolly]

Sigh. Sadly this is not the first article like this I've encountered. Remember the Joel Stein one? It may have even had the same name.

I don't know that I could respond to a person who believes this and not be brushed aside as an hysterical over-reactive parent. You can't win with people like this. You can't convince them that their convenience (DC eating PB for lunch instead of breakfast, snack or dinner) is worth someone else's safety. I don't ever wish a FA on anyone, but I'd love to have this person walk a day in my shoes, then try to quote statistics at me. I believe it is the most specious of arguments that not 'enough' people have died to warrant the hype. One is enough if it is your family member.

[Laurel]

Unfortunately, this editor probably knew exactly what she was doing, which is using the "controversy" of FA for publicity. Disgusting.

[AnnieW625]

I don't have a child with confirmed food allergies (maybe cows milk only because it makes her nose run like crazy so she drinks soy) so I really can't comment from experience. However I did read the article and for some people whose children don't have food allergies I can sort of see her point. She can't give her picky kid a peanut butter sandwich because she made it sound like it had been banned in her son's school even though there are no kids with peanut allergies in his grade. She could've backed that up by stating that all of the kids eat lunch with only kids from their grade, not the whole population, and for simplicity sake at the school I can see why it's easier to just ban peanuts all together. However I doubt that the kids only eat with their class mates so that really makes her argument that the peanut ban shouldn't apply to her son's class a pretty weak argument. If I had a severe peanut allergy kindergartner I wouldn't want another 4th grade non peanut allergy kid sitting next to my kid so for situations like that I can see a whole wide school ban.

I could also slightly see how peanuts seem to be the only thing that is banned and not everything else like milk. Of course most kids her son's age also like cheese so she could've written about being able to give her son cheese and not caused a stir, but unfortunately that wasn't her point, and would cause contreversy like singling out peanuts has.

I am not defending her in anyway at all so please no flames that just how I initially read the article. I am not done having kids so I could end up with another child who has food allergies too and thankfully the FA moms here and another friend with a peanut allergy son has really got me thinking of all of the other great things I can make that are allergen if I am baking for them or once DD goes to school on a full time basis.

Bubbaray, good job for you for writing and good job for those 74 other people who posted their comments too. :)

[MamaMolly]

Annie, you make good points. I agree that banning peanuts only isn't too helpful to a kiddo with allergies like my DD and Bubbaray's have. And DD is also a terribly picky eater, so I am extremely sympathetic to a mom in that situation. But for me it comes down to choices and priorities. I think most of the folks would spare their own convenience to keep someone else's DC safe. Writing a multi-page article trying to justify why you shouldn't have to is...well, just ridiculously self centered IMO.

If the writer had done a bit more research, she might have learned that peanut protein is especially hard to remove (it is in the oils), and that is one of the reasons it makes sense to do a school wide ban. I wish reporters like her would go to websites like www.faan.org and www.kidswithfoodallergies.org and do some REAL reporting from there.

Again, I agree you have some points, and so does the writer of the article. But what her article really boils down to is that she is using research to justify her own self serving wants.

[bubbaray]

Annie, you make good points. I agree that banning peanuts only isn't too helpful to a kiddo with allergies like my DD and Bubbaray's have. And DD is also a terribly picky eater, so I am extremely sympathetic to a mom in that situation. But for me it comes down to choices and priorities. I think most of the folks would spare their own convenience to keep someone else's DC safe. Writing a multi-page article trying to justify why you shouldn't have to is...well, just ridiculously self centered IMO.




THIS.

I'm on the more "relaxed" end of the spectrum when it comes to the girls' FAs. Really, I am. But, seeing "The making of the peanut allergy myth" on the front of this magazine made me want to puke. Its not a freakin' myth. Its not something parents make up to get attention or have their children treated "special". Frankly, FAs are a complete PITA.

[sariana]

Unfortunately, there are people in this world who claim their children have all kinds of problems when they really don't. That just makes it that much more difficult for those whose DC do have real problems, whether it be food allergies, autism, or whatever.

Uninformed people who jump on the bandwagon trivialize real problems. It's really a shame. Sometimes these "posers" contribute to things such as this article (which I didn't read, but I can guess at what it must say).