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swong

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What's Happening Now

July 1, 2010 3:25 am

My son is severely allergic to peanuts and has allergic reactions as a result of being around people eating peanuts due to the peanut dust in the air.

We had to travel internationally and were able to work with the airline to book peanut free roundtrip flights after submitting a letter from my son’s allergist. The airline did everything they could including serving snacks without peanuts, putting allergy alert stickers on our seats, and making an announcement asking passengers to refrain from eating their peanut snacks.

My son was fine going to our destination but had an allergic reaction within minutes of being seated for our return trip. Since he didn’t eat any peanuts, we gave him some benadryl, moved him to a different row, and wiped down his new seat.

We were fortunate… more »

…that his reaction was not severe enough to require an epi-pen injection and a trip to the hospital in another country. We suspect that he was reacting to peanut residue in the area of his seat from the previous flight. We may not be so lucky next time because we have been told that the next reaction is even stronger than the last.

Even though we were on a peanut-free fight, my son still was not safe because of the peanut residue on the plane from a previous flight. If peanuts are banned on all flights, my son would have been safe.

When an allergic reaction occurs high up in the sky over a huge ocean, and an epi-pen injection can only give a person an extra 20 minutes, there is not enough time to turn the plane around and take the person to the hospital. I believe that it is reasonable to ban peanuts from airline flights if that assures the safety of a passenger that has a severe peanut allergy. This decision could mean life or death for someone.

Thank you for your thoughtful consideration to ban peanuts from flights. « less

July 2, 2010 10:21 am

Thank you for your comment. One of the more difficult questions the DOT faces, if they decide to ban peanuts, is which products must be banned, and which are acceptable. Do you have any thoughts on this issue? Are products with only trace amounts of peanuts still dangerous?

August 30, 2010 2:22 pm

Once again, a reaction “not severe enough to…”. Here is the problem. No one has ever died on an airplane from a peanut allergy. The problem that the DOT is trying to fix here doesn’t exist. People have all kinds of allergic reactions in all kinds of places but I don’t know of anyone dying from ANY allergic reaction onboard an airplane. If there is such a case can someone please post a link to NTSB documentation?


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