Woman with severe allergy ‘left with no choice’ but to buy every packet of peanuts on flight
Woman ‘left with no choice’ but to buy every packet of peanuts on flight
‘Eurowings should be ashamed of how they handled this situation,’ says passenger
I was told on a budget flight maybe a decade ago that they would not serve peanuts because a fellow passenger was severely allergic. I hadn't even thought of getting any until the announcement, and then spent the entire flight fantasising about the nuts I would get the moment we landed.
Judge not, lest to be judged. Another time I found out the hard way that Emirates won't serve any pork products, and so I was craving a sausage until the destination!
Seems like this is something that should be brought up at the time you buy a ticket so the company can either say, we won't stock them on the flight or offer her a refund if they can't accommodate, rather than when the plane has already boarded and expecting the flight crew to deal with it.
A 2004 study by Simonte et al. exposed 29 severely peanut allergic patients to a double-blind inhalation challenge to 3oz of peanut butter (or soy butter, both masked for smell) just 12 inches from the nose. As well, a pea sized drop of either masked butter was smeared on the skin for 1 minute, and then was removed. In both exposures, no one developed any allergic reactions. There were 3 patients who developed localized erythema and 5 developing localized pruritus from the peanut butter skin contact, but 5 also developed erythema with soy butter skin contact, which demonstrates that butters on the skin can cause irritation but not generalized reactions. The authors concluded that casual contact or inhalation of peanut butter was highly unlikely to cause any symptoms.
In 2016, Jin et al re-replicated these findings within a cabin of an airplane in flight. They noted surface contamination of Ara h 2 on unwashed tray tables after someone ate peanut over them, and among 7 air filters measuring Ara h 2 content when placed on a tray table directly below the mouth of someone eating peanut only 1 filter detected any level, which was 1-2ng/500cm3. They found no detectable peanut levels from 3 air filters tested in a restaurant where individuals were deshelling and eating peanut. Investigators concluded that the risk of exposure to peanut on an airplane stems from potentially contaminated surfaces and not from airborne levels.
a pea sized drop of [peanut] butter was smeared on the skin for 1 minute
no one developed any allergic reactions
I only read the article you linked to, not the actual study. I wonder how they corrected for the extra reluctance a person who believes that he will have an intense reaction specifically to touching peanut butter would have to volunteer for such a study.
Why others should not eat peanuts? In case they wanted to spit on her?
the process of eating is not as straightforward as it seems. while manipulating food and chewing it, you do release tiny microscopic particles of it (especially true for something that has the consistency of peanuts) that end up floating in the air. somebody with high enough sensitivity will be affected, as one single strand of the protein responsible (or a single fragment) can trigger anaphylactic shock
edit: I stand corrected, somebody below has linked some studies done on this and it appears to be more about surface contamination, not air exposure. But then if it's surface contamination, that would be an issue from the previous passengers on the flight, not the current ones I think?
It's both, but more so for the current passengers. While not thorough, they do clean the planes between flights, about as well as they clean movie theatres between viewings, maybe a bit better.
With previous occupants, the damage is done, nothing can change the fact that they might have contaminated an area that wasn't properly cleaned, but limiting additional contamination is the only mitigation available for this lady, besides traveling in an N95, wearing gloves and other PPE, which may be a better option than buying up all the offending material.
I can sympathize with her plight, but I understand that not everyone will; and asking people to be cautious of their surface contamination... Well, you might as well ask them to will themselves through the air to their destination unaided by any machine. IMO, most average people don't understand surface contamination, and by proxy, won't participate in such restrictions. It's not something that most people need to, or choose to think about.
I don't begrudge the person for doing what they did, they have a medical issue that nobody took seriously enough. I get it, but I'm sure more than a few passengers were salty about not being able to get peanuts... No pun in tended.
There's also the contamination of the flight assistants, someone eating peanuts and having a beverage, contaminates the beverage container with peanut oil, which is collected by the attendant, whose hands are now contaminated, even if they ate no peanuts, who then serves the person with severe allergies, contaminating their food or beverages with the peanut oils, causing them to have a anaphylactic reaction, and potentially die as a result.
Exposure through a chain of contacts is hard to trace sometimes and for the most part, people don't think about these things. I know that after COVID, I do what I can to touch as little as possible in public places. I don't want your germs, or the cold, or the flu, or COVID, or anything else the random strangers that previously came through may have had and transferred to whatever I'm touching. No thanks.
It's not an easy situation, and airlines are often scumbags but I really don't think the airline is totally at fault or should be ashamed here. As much as it's an unfortunate disability, an accomodation for it does not have unlimited range to affect others' rights and liberties. There are several accommodations and alternatives, such as relocation to an alternate seat where no one is eating nuts, arranging private transportation (that is one of the few things private air travel is practical for).
Disability accommodation regulations even state that it has to be at a reasonable level of cost/effort for the person or company accomodating.
A close relative of mine has severe/life-threating shellfish allergies. I still don't think it would be a good idea to ban serving shellfish to other customers, but at most if it was on the menu, to be requested to relocate to somewhere with a lesser degree of exposure.
The problem specifically with peanut allergy is that if it's severe enough, it can actually be a big enough deal that someone in the same room/plane is eating a peanut. And if this person was willing to go to this length, theirs likely is at that stage. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth it.
Most other extremely severe allergies are unlike that. It's why you hear about severe peanut allergies more than any other type.
Peanuts are the hand grenades of the allergy world - you just need to get close enough and they'll get you
Why do they sell potentially allergic products onboard?
Lots of people are "potentially" allergic to all kinds of benign seeming stuff. It would be nigh on impossible to create a menu that no one should be allergic too.
Why can't people with peanut allergies just die? We're interfering with evolution. See, I said something dumb too. People are allergic to just about every food item you can think of, so just no food allowed in plains right?
I feel bad for her but I have to wonder, how does this person function on a day to day basis? If their allergy is so severe that other people eating peanuts around her would harm her, how does she leave the house? How did she navigate the airport?
Yeah exactly, if her allergy was that severe - which it evidently was not, see the comment by Eurowings about a general buildup due to the nature of airplane flight and airplane in-air circulation and she survivedt hat - then she would naturally not be flying commercial. There'd be no way to do that without immediately triggering her allergy.
Not only that, but did she handle the packages of nuts after purchase? Because if she did, she came into contact with an absolute shit ton of nut particles, and would have had a reaction.
obviously there is a way to do that without immediately triggering an allergy, and she found one of those ways. not being someone with a peanut allergy you have no idea about "buildup" levels, but she does
Peanuts are not ubiquitous in public. Being near several people eating them in a fairly enclosed space is very different than walking through and airport and someone 25 feet away has a bag of peanuts.
The air within an airplane cabin is recirculated every five or ten minutes. A real severe peanut allergy would be triggered by anyone on the plane eating peanuts.
Yeah I had that thought too but if this were the case, would you take a life threatening risk that no one else on the plane has peanuts? Wouldn't you drive instead? Or take a means of public transportation where they don't regularly sell your allergen?
I imagine she navigated those things with great difficulty and made the best decisions she could. She, like any other person with a medical condition or disability, exists in a world that usually will be hostile to her survival. Yet she must still exist within it. Sometimes people have to do things like take flights and rarely can someone afford to take measures that would best protect them (like a private flight or something in this case). Sounds like she didn't want to announce her private medical information to everyone around her so she did what she could to keep safe, buy all the peanuts. Ideally she wouldn't have to, peanut allergies are pretty well known and if we cared about increasing access for people not having peanuts for sale on planes is a pretty simple step. Until then people will keep being put into scenarios like this then scrutinized for the choices they make.
I was watching a video of people who are "allergic" to electromagnetic waves. It's easy to forget empathy.
It's easy to laugh at them. But they are suffering from something rough.
If they're living their life and solving their own problems, god speed.
Allergy lady didn't go Karen. She bought all the nuts. Seems open and closed in my book. Yet people are mocking her for her disability? Okay.
She claims she offered to tell the people around her not to buy them but the airline refused. The airline says they had agreed to do that but she decided to buy them all anyway. So it wasn’t about giving up private medical information (which wouldn’t make much sense anyway since she announced it to the world through this article). There’s also the fact that you’re very rarely “forced” to fly anywhere, especially in Europe. I just checked Google Maps and a flight from London to Düsseldorf is a little over an hour. There are train options for about 5 and half hours. That’s obviously a pretty big difference, but definitely workable if the allergy is really that severe. There’s also the fact she could’ve called ahead of time and asked about options instead of trying to strongarm the flight attendants into doing what she wanted.
And yeah, it wouldn’t be that difficult to not sell peanuts but that’s not the only thing people are allergic too. Unless they were going to not sell any snacks and not allow any outside food, it’d be impossible to prevent all allergens. That’s one of those things that the only possible solution is the person with the disorder to do their best to mitigate exposure, which means making sacrifices like taken a few trains for 6 hours instead of a convenient flight. There’s lots of people that due to various restrictions can’t always take the most convenient option.
She did actually agree to have that information shared with the other passengers and then still bought all the peanuts. I'm not saying she's faking her allergy or something, I'm trying to wrap my head around her train of thought here. You can also take a car, a train, a bus, all means of transportation where the transport company doesn't sell you peanuts. Yeah it's less convenient but shit man, it won't kill you.
100% agree with this though
I've known people with severe food allergies, so I empathize with the caution needed in their everyday lives, but I'm pretty sure this woman went overboard. Which is a bit odd, considering she was 27 years old, which makes me suspect she's dealt with this allergy for many years and should be used to having to deal with non-allergic people around her.
There are a lot of tragic stories of people reacting to peanuts or other allergens and dying, in situations they thought were safe
Anaphylaxis hits hard and fast - even with an immediate response, it's often not enough to save the person afflicted
"i'm pretty sure she went overboard" said by neither a peanut allergy sufferer, doctor or sicentist. the guy from lemmy said he's pretty sure, folks, case closed
Very cautiously.
I routinely bring peanuts on flights. Not for this reason, just because I don't trust/rely on airlines to feed me.
A quick bit of googling indicates this was probably an Airbus 320 which another Google shows is about 123 feet long. Being generous and allowing 20 foot for cabin, loos, etc, does this mean her whole life she's never been within 100 foot of any nut?
I guess I sort of understand, this is an enclosed space with recycled AC, but it just seems unlikely that if it was this severe she'd take a life threatening risk like this. Right?