Air Canada Ordered To Provide Nut-Free Zone

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."

Comments

Real or trained response

[ehud42]

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.