House of Eratosthenes

Back in 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) told parents to stop feeding peanuts and peanut products to their children until they reached the age of three. Despite this, prevalency rates of peanut allergies continued to rise, and by 2008, the AAP had retracted its recommendation for lack of proof. At the same time, correlative studies were starting to show that allergy rates were higher among populations practicing early food-avoidance compared to those who were not. What’s more, some studies showed that early introduction of egg and milk could be associated with a decrease in related allergies.

The new study, which appears in The New England Journal of Medicine, is now providing some concrete evidence. In a controlled trial, a group of 530 infants aged 4 to 11 months at high risk of developing peanut allergies were randomly assigned either to be fed food with peanuts (consumption group) or peanut-free foods (avoidance group). The children were fed at least six grams of peanut protein each week, about 24 peanuts’ worth.

This went on until they reached the age of five. Around 10% of the children were eventually excluded from the study for fear of severe reactions.

The results were striking: By age five, the overall prevalence of peanut allergy in the avoidance group was 17.2%. In the consumption group, it was 3.2%…

Yeah, I remember reading about that 13-year-old girl a couple years ago (video clip behind link auto-plays). Ate a peanut snack at a summer camp, died in her father’s arms. Last I heard, they were suing. Maybe it’s insensitive to say, but I have to confess the suit wouldn’t have much chance if I was on the jury, because kids generally just aren’t built that way. They’re born to deal with things; they’re resilient creatures. The newer study seems to support this.

There is disagreement here that is generational in nature. Like many crusty old farts, I think back to kids with allergies back in my day. Maybe one or two in the whole damn school had an allergy. And if they ate something they shouldn’t, it was mild discomfort, maybe breaking out in the face. Don’t think we ever got to find out for sure.

Eat the wrong thing and drop dead? It was unfathomable. Now we have a lawsuit…

Something is different. Something’s different about kids and their allergies, and with the studies. And with neurotic, study-overloaded parenting. Also, with long-term memory. Some of the neurotic-parents are just as old as I am, and could recall generally the same memories about four decades ago that I can recall — but it doesn’t trigger any skepticism about the latest neurotic-study. History always began this morning, don’t feed your kids this, don’t feed your kids that.

Now we have some real health concerns, vulnerabilities, and a few actual deaths. All of which would appear to be entirely avoidable. How sad.

Wow. Modern parenting in a — forgive me — nutshell. “Protect” your kids by giving them allergies and a “learning disorder.”
- Severian | 02/27/2015 @ 06:58
I think you’re missing the forest for the trees here. This is yet another “the science is settled”moment. We are cocksure about what science has told us only to find out 10 years later we were completely wrong.
- Duffy | 02/27/2015 @ 07:00
Yeah, I’m not missing that. But I do have a fascination in how this stuff happens. “Scientists” pedaling dubious “science” don’t get to decide how fanatically it gets bought. Some of this stuff achieves currency, finds a way to resonate.

I think new parents are particularly vulnerable to the highly questionable narrative that something has only now just been discovered, and if you read the right thing in this very moment and make a point of acting on it, a lifetime of disaster for your child may be averted. But only if you act on it immediately and unquestioningly. With the vaccine/autism thing we’re seeing an actual turnabout, people who know nothing about vaccines or autism are lecturing at other people who know nothing about vaccines or autism, that we all need to gather around anybody who ever believed in a link between vaccines and autism, and help ridicule them, For The Children. They don’t realize it, but they’re feeding on their own. What’s missing is a steady hand on the ship’s tiller. Way too much jerking-motion going on in figuring out how kids should be raised…which is something mankind has had hundreds of thousands of years to refine, we shouldn’t be constantly looking for some snake-oil science to completely upend the whole thing. To my way of thinking, that’s the point of origin, this unwarranted lust for some nugget of NewScience^TM that will just change everything everyone thought they knew about everything.

At the end of the day though, good wise parenting isn’t too much different from what it’s always been. Reward, punish, set a good role model; and if you’re the Dad, figure out the difference between what the kids know how to do and what they’re going to have to do after you’re dead, teach them to do it, and go on to the next thing.
- mkfreeberg | 02/27/2015 @ 07:13
I just recently went through something like this with a buddy. His wife was trying to get pregnant — she wasn’t actually pregnant, mind you, just trying — and it was all “I can’t eat this, I can’t drink that, I can’t take a chance of blah blah blah being in my system.” I mean… really? Ok, yes, smoking crack while you’re pregnant is probably a bad idea, and I can see laying off the two pots of coffee a day, but to hear this lady tell it, there’s no possible way the human race ever could’ve reproduced itself. I’m pretty sure real science doesn’t work like that….
- Severian | 02/27/2015 @ 09:40
So, maybe giving speed, and other mind altering pharmapsycotics to young school boys for refusing to pay attention in “modern teaching theory” classrooms, and respect “authority” time outs, is just frickin’ stupid too?
- CaptDMO | 02/27/2015 @ 17:15
Scientific studies and the parents who live by them aside…my theory on why these allergies (and why peanuts?) have increased exponentially is because a whole generation of parents have denied a whole generation of children…or two…from simply playing outside in the dirt.

When I was a kid, that’s what we did. And I’m allergy free. Perhaps a good healthy exposure to certain microbes helps build up the immune system. Microbes that live in the same environment as where peanuts are grown.
- bammit | 03/02/2015 @ 09:56
I have a theory about today’s illnesses. Antiobiotics were developed in my lifetime. We are learning that our immune system resides in our guts. I think some of the issues we have are due to changes in gut bacteria caused by antibiotics. Even if we don’t take them, our food is full of them. We still give animals antibiotics.
- teripittman | 03/05/2015 @ 19:01

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“Depriving Infants Of Peanut Products May Have Been A Colossal Mistake”Friday, February 27th, 2015

“Depriving Infants Of Peanut Products May Have Been A Colossal Mistake”
Friday, February 27th, 2015