Air Canada Ordered To Provide Nut-Free Zone 643
JamJam writes "Air Canada has been told to create a special 'buffer zone' on flights for people who are allergic to nuts. The Canadian Transportation Agency has ruled that passengers who have nut allergies should be considered disabled and accommodated by the airline. Air Canada has a month to come up with an appropriate section of seats where passengers with nut allergies would be seated. The ruling involved a complaint from Sophia Huyer, who has a severe nut allergy and travels frequently. Ms. Huyer once spent 40 minutes in the washroom during a flight while snacks were being served."
Re:Shrimp free zone? (Score:4, Interesting)
Many people with allergies to fur can react to particles in the air as well, or find the smell absolutely revolting. Should we ban dogs and cats from traveling in planes? Admittedly the allergy is rarely fatal--- but the peanut allergy appears not to be in this setting, either, as there is not a single documented case of someone dying due to peanut dust circulating inside an airliner.
Re:Stop serving nuts (Score:3, Interesting)
Does this mean my Snickers bar will now be confiscated by security?
Real or trained response (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if some of the reactions that people with allergies have when exposure is very low are trained responses. Like Pavlov's dog, ring the bell and start salivating, smell peanut butter and start choking.
My only basis for this is personal experience with chemo-therapy. After just a few rounds of treatments, just DRIVING to the hospital was enough to start me throwing up. It was bizzare and extremely frustrating to be sitting in the chair getting hooked up to a saline only IV and having to hurl. No matter how hard I tried to reason with myself, I was getting sick from the drugs that were no where near my body, much less in them and taking affect yet.
My thought is that people who have had a bad experience with a real allergic reaction have very quickly and effectively trained their brain to induce the reaction response at even the smell of the allergen.
Anyone else have similar experiences / theories about the validity of 'nut-free' zones?
ps - just to be clear, I'm not suggesting the reaction isn't happening, but just curious if it real or trained. If trained, maybe people can be trained out of it and then live less intrusive lives. BTW, 15+ years later I'm basically fine - hospitals don't bother me much, however, there is still a certain ladies deo / perfume that makes me feel queesy.
Re:Peanut Hysteria is more of a psychological issu (Score:5, Interesting)
I can. My oldest son is extremely allergic to peanuts, almonds, and most other kinds of nuts. He has to carry an epi-pen with him wherever he goes. One day, my son's class went on a field trip to a farm. He started looking sick, and his face started to swell. Fortunately, the teacher saw it, gave him some Benadryl and he was fine for the rest of the afternoon. Turns out that the farm was near some peanut-growing farms and it was right in the midst of harvest season, so the peanut dust was in the air.
We've also had instances where my son was near some kids at school who were having a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, and my son started getting sick. Again, Benedryl was administered, and the school made sure that if someone had peanut butter in their lunches, they had to sit at least one or two seats away. Worst case, my son had to sit at a different table (although some classmates did come and sit by him).
It's not fun, dealing with allergies like this, but taking sensible precautions helps avoid a true life-or-death problem.
Where's my perfume-free zone? (Score:2, Interesting)
And it was disgusting, and made my flight a hell, with clogged sinuses and the concomitant ear congestion that results in excruciating pain until the congestion clears (oh, it only takes a few hours). Benadryl and Claritin and any other anti-allergy drug don't help.
Re:where did nut alergies come from? (Score:3, Interesting)
when i was growing up, no one had this problem, but now it seems that it is almost commonplace. is this a symptom of something we've done lately (to our food source perhaps), or a symptom of me just not getting exposed to news sources as a kid?
It's a symptom of hypochondria which has spiralled out of control. It's also self-perpetuating, because it's been proven that many allergies are caused by over or under exposure to a certain thing during the early years. Peanut allergy particularly is caused by this because parents just don't give the kid nuts just in case they are allergic.
Re:Shrimp free zone? (Score:1, Interesting)
On the ones I fly you are lucky to get the first
AAAAAAANNNNNDDD,
There are no documented cases of it happening so far, I'd recommend building your arguments out of something other than straw.
Re:the new standard... (Score:2, Interesting)
perhaps you should get over yourself and stop demanding that you be given the 'right' to eat non-essential (and nutritionaly damaging) snacks (which you'll only have because they're given to you by the airline) in a confined space with someone who has a non-negligible chance of dying if they come into contact with it, and consequently finds mearly smelling the damn things terrifying
Re:Shrimp free zone? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, in my case I have an anaphylactic [wikipedia.org] reaction to cats, including dander, fur, oils, etc, so having them in the closed-circulation cabin air could indeed be fatal.
It's especially worrisome since allergic reactions often intensify the more often they occur -- someone might not even realize that the next one could be fatal until it's 2 hours too late into a 5+ hour flight.
Re:Shrimp free zone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Couldn't the allergic individual just wear a face mask while they were serving?
But where do you put the limit? (Score:3, Interesting)
There was a recent story about electrical (not hybrid) cars being so quiet, that blind people don't hear them. I only learned from reactions to that story that guide dogs don't actually see traffic. Always thought they did, but they just see the curb and then the blind person has to decide wether it is safe to cross. A bit hard with a silent car you cannot see...
So... how far do we go? Do we actually have to make silent cars make noise for a small percentage of people? It can't be easy being blind, I notice that in Holland around Utrecht there seem to be a lot recently traveling by public transport (not all fully blind of course) and you can see the problems. Snow? All of them gone, if the bus stops away from the curb, they can't readily see the entrance. If the stop is not used for some reason, the orange bag over the sign won't be seen. They can't check time tables, can't see announcements about altered routes.
So, do we even bother with them? Or tell them to go back to their institutions? Lock them up?
Like many others, i find the peanut allergy a bit silly. Where do you draw the line? You mean that if this person smells someone's peanut breath, they die? How do they life? You can ban peanuts from aircraft but not from the rest of the world. What about taxi's? The street? What if I bring peanuts on the plane myself? What if I work in peanut factory?
And what if someone is allergic to this woman? Say her scent? Will she comply with that? Wanna bet she drives her car despite people having asthma?
But there is a real danger in arguing what the parent argues. It is only a small distance from that and the gas chambers for those who are a drag on society. Already babies are euthanized because they are considered unfit to survive. Or in less advanced countries (such as the US), left to starve on their own because that is what god wants...
No, it is all to easy to say there is a line, but drawing that line sets a dangerous precedent. Once such a line has been drawn, beyond which point you are considered not worth "it" to society, that line can be moved. And it may never happen that this line reaches you, but that is a terrible way to life.
Personally, I think it can be solved rather simple, let her wear an isolation suit on the flight. Problem solved and you can use it in more situations then just aircraft. And the rest of the passengers just have to deal with it, just as you accept wet dog smell from a guide dog. Because we are human beings and we are better human beings if we don't live by survival of the fittest. Remember that the greatest mind alive today is probably also the least fit person.
Re:Shrimp free zone? (Score:2, Interesting)
Guess I'll bring my own peanuts. Unless they will be considered a prohibited substance.
Don't worry, they will. There are schools all across America where the kids get in trouble for bringing anything with peanuts with them for lunch.
Re:Shrimp free zone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why wouldn't they simply bump the person with the allergy? You signed up first, why should you be punished?
Re:Shrimp free zone? (Score:5, Interesting)
There is some iota of rationale.
No, there is not. If Ms. Huyer does not wish to adjust herself to another position in her company that requires less travel, she has plenty of alternative transportation options: car, bus, train, charter aircraft, private aircraft (she can go get her pilot's license), etc. You don't have a RIGHT to get on an airplane. What happens when someone drops a peanut on the floor and it rolls into the "buffer" zone? Is the airline going to be held responsible for not building a glass-enclosed, hermetically sealed environment?
It is not the government's job to bring down an iron fist because ONE passenger had ONE incident where she hid in the bathroom - with full and complete knowledge that on commercial flights, they serve nuts. I'm tired of the government mandated bullshit where everyone ELSE has to accommodate, bend over for, and kiss the ass of the one. Where are all of these people on airplanes that have had violent, fatal reactions to nuts? Either she's full of shit, or all of them except for her have all found ways of dealing with it.
FTFA:
She wants all nuts banned from all airlines.
I say start with her.
Re:where did nut alergies come from? (Score:3, Interesting)
There's been some research recently that focused on children's exposure to garden-variety dirt and pets vs allergy incidence. Those with more exposure to this sort of "dirt" (what we evolved around in the first place) were significantly less likely to develop random allergies, because their immune systems had been stimulated at a reasonable level and had "learned" to handle it. However, kids that lacked such exposure were much more likely to develop allergies -- lacking prior "experience" as it were, their immune systems tend to overreact (which is what an allergy IS) when they encounter "unknown" substances.
I'm too lazy to look up a cite but I'm sure you can find plenty about this.