This seems very bizarre to me. A child can die simply from being in the same room as a another child who is wearing an outfit he wore when near peanuts? Or from breathing air that a peanut product has passed through? I have a food allergy - to oats. It's pretty bad but not as bad as it could get if I had further exposure. I try to be very careful but sometimes oats can be hidden (usually at restaurants or when not listed in the ingredients, like dates rolled in oats). That happens to me about once a year and it is not pretty. I can feel it within seconds. An itching on the lips, in the mouth and a raw feeling in those places, like the skin has been scraped. Then, I get hive-like blisters on my skin, palms of my hands, etc. The moment I feel the feeling in my mouth, I make myself vomit as much as I can. It's gross and horrid. But if I don't, oh, it's awful.
I also feel my throat start to swell and then every orifice hurts and itches. When it hits my digestive system, it seriously has me writhing on the floor in unimaginable pain. It feels like little rats gnawing on me from the inside out. It's true that my allergy has not progressed to where it could go. I don't even keep an epi-pen although the doctor did recommend and prescribe it. So, I have a hard time relating to some of this.
I know I will get bashed for this, and probably deservedly, due to my ingnorance, but is there a chance that some of these effects are psychosomatic? That's not to say that the symptoms would not be very real or very dangerous, because psychosomatic symptoms can be deadly, but is there a chance that, for example, the kid who breathed the hoodie air reacted that way because she found out the child had been on the plane?
My brother got poisoned as a child accidentally. After that, he could not go down a cleaning products aisle in the supermarket without flipping out and having a reaction. On two occasions after the poisoning, poison control had to be called because he believed he had been exposed to poisons again. I don't believe he had been. I think it was psychological.
If not, and a child could get a life-threatening reaction from breathing the same air that an article of clothing is in that had been near a peanut, such children likely would not make it to adulthood. (And about those peanut free flights, if peanuts had ever been on the plane, such a child would likely react almost immediately). There are just too many places where peanut products are.
Regardless, I think this kid should be able to go to school. I think the accommodations being asked of the other kids are annoying but not a huge price to pay. As far as a child accidentally causing a reaction or the death of the allergic child, that is the risk the parents of the child must take. I would rather live as normally as possible than live in an isolated bubble, even if living outside the bubble is a very huge risk and could shorten my life because life is not like real life when you can't live it at all.
But what about the psychological damage to a child who accidentally harms the allergic child? What if a student accidentally causes the allergic child's death? Should non-allergic kids be exposed to the risk of such a catastrophe? Well, most kids would feel very distraught but IMO, only the most sensitive of kids would have any kind of permanent damage that inhibits their ability to live normally, and there are ways to mitigate against such damage in any event. I think sheltering students from the possibility of such an occurrence is just as bad as forcing an allergic child to remain isolated. I don't know. It's tricky.
