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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."
Should there also be a shrimp free zone for those who are allergic to shrimps, and a strawberry free zone for those who are alergic to strawberries, and maybe a sweater free zone for those who are allergic to sweaters?
I'm allergic to idiots. Is there anywhere in Canada I will be able to travel?
I'm allergic to noisy babies and children who kick my seat-back. Where's my zone?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Like almost all US airlines have done. Of course Ms. Huyer will then complain that everyone will be getting snacks but her... (not to make like of nut allergies, which really can be deadly. But a "nut free zone" in an enclosed space with recirculated air? Just switch to pretzels and be done with it.)
Can I please have a special government-enforced seating zone that has an extra 6" of leg room, at no extra charge?
According to this pets are now allowed on Air Canada, although many people with allergies object and can no longer fly because of this. But nuts (which don't get carried in the air as much as pet dander) are not allowed?
Am I the only one wondering WTF?
You get your nuts pet when you go through security before the flight.
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.
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
I'm sorry, and I mean no offense, but that's not evidence. The problem with parents who tell these tales about how peanuts are like kryptonite to their kids or they're allergic to X in food is also he reason why we shouldn't base public policy on anecdotal evidence (there's another comment below about someone "who knows a family with a son who...")--so please don't take this as if I'm targeting you specifically or questioning he veracity of what you're relating; I'm just pointing that this is isn't how we gather evidence on public health issues and the stories told by parents shouldn't form the basis of public health policies.
The thing is, in the scenarios you're describing, you have a son who is quite allergic to nuts, I'm going to guess because he had something with peanuts actually in it at some point, or came into contact with the oil, and after that happened a couple of times with an allergic reaction, you figured out he was allergic. And people at the school and around him basically know this, too.
So now, when your son doesn't feel well, on a field trip, or at school, everyone looks around for the nuts. And lo and behold, you're next to a peanut farm. Or a kid at the table is having a PB&J. Or you find out his playmate had peanut butter pancakes that morning, or a snack made in a facility processing pine nuts. Or whatever. And you have your "explanation."
Except that you don't actually know how frequently your son is exposed to "peanut dust" or "contaminated surfaces" or whatever, and doesn't have a reaction. Maybe he's allergic to something else, or maybe not. Or maybe it goes down exactly as you suspect. The problem is that in the absence of a controlled study, we just can't tell. And while it makes sense (maybe) for you to just be on the safe side with regard to nuts, it doesn't make sense to make rules, regulations and laws with significant costs for others without that peer-reviewed, study-based justification.
Anyway, I hope people take this as the call for more information and for better study of the public health implications of allergies that it is, and not as an attack on a dad and his son, which it certainly isn't intended to be.
demi
I'm sure lots of us have lists of things that we'd like air transportation to be "free" of. For example: fat people not in first class, drunk college kids on their way to spring break, young yuppie males on their way to (or from) Vegas, babies, children, people who want to start conversations with me that are not cute females, etc. I am particularly allergic to the baby thing, having changed many many diapers some years ago, and now feel I am entitled to not be confronted with the aroma of baby poop when I'm in an enclosed space in which I am not allowed to light a cigar. I mean, outside of some sniffy matron with a stick up her bum, and maybe some of the more "sensitive" Mac users, who could possibly object to a gentleman like myself enjoying a fine cigar whilst flying? Fascists, that's who! But we're all supposed to go "awww.." when a wrinkled little brat squirts a toxic load into his pampers just as you're about to bite into that meatball and melrose pepper sandwich you lovingly wrapped in wax paper and have been waiting to eat since you were back on the tarmac. But that's a fight for another day.
I say, if you are so allergic to peanuts that someone sitting next to you eating an ersatz oreo "cracker" that may or may not have been made on equipment that also processes nuts is going to cause you to have to lock yourself in the bathroom for a 4 hour flight, then I suggest you are certainly a candidate for the no-fly list and possibly a pay-no-mind list, while we're at it, because you are clearly a royal noodge and pain in the ass to be around. In fact, it's things like this that are the reasons you are still single. And everyone knows allergies are psychosomatic, anyway, and besides, who cares about your little anaphylactic shock tantrum because your mother was scared by Mr Peanut when you were in utero? Maybe try for five minutes not to be such a fucking lightweight. And have you ever noticed that people with these so-called "food allergies" also tend to be non-smokers and irritating as hell? No, seriously. Think about the people you know with food allergies. They're really irritating in other ways too, right? Right?
But I'm still trying to figure out what this story has to do with technology, unless Air Canada is about to employ sensitive equipment that will sense as little as 5 molecules of nut meat within a radius of 50 yards and runs Linux.
You are welcome on my lawn.