“1 in 4 kids, young adults have been teased or harassed…” WTF! Of all the important topics that could have been reported on, MSNBC chose to report this… so now what, do we file suit and sue every kid that teases another kid in school? Parents here’s a thought… send your kids to karate or boxing classes so they can kick the bully’s ass and we won’t have to read wimpy crap articles like this. And stop acting like every damn thing you touch or breath is going kill you, or any peanut within a 10 square mile radius is going to kill you… you surely cannot expect the world to side-step you because you have allergies (serious as they may be), or maybe you do…

This is a follow-up article I saw about how people allergic to peanuts want to ban peanuts on airplanes… why not just ban breathing (it’d probably be better)?

Reply to Hot-In-Miami: How can a kid explain they don't like any baked goods like cupcakes, cookies, many breads? That likely would cause more and/or different bullying.

Many food allergies are ingredient foods, like egg, wheat, milk, soy, peanut. If these were all stand-alone foods, great, tell the kid to say I don't like it. But unfortunatly,foods that cause allergy issues are ingredients and to keep a kid safe, it means being open and honest about the allergy and knowing which foods could contain the ingredient.

What gets non-allergic kids upset, is when my child brings allergy safe treats to school and these not only look better than the standards other kids are eating, but generally taste better too.

To Blondness032 are you kidding me? Comparing a kid waving a peanut butter sandwich at a kid to a knife or gun? You truely embrace the blondness of your name.

Look I had alergies as a kid, but was teased/bullied as I was a small kid. I faught back with sarcasm and just plain outwitting the bullies. I can't say this enough. If we as a country continue to be bullied by the extremes of our society be it political correctness or over reacting to every little thing we are going to fail as a society. What we need is a heavy does of common sense.

Look for the extremely small percentage of people and kids who have allergies that are truely life threatening I feel for you, but it is your responsibility to protect yourselves and not the responsibility of every other human being to walk on egg shells. If you have a kid who is true that allergic then make sure your kids teachers and administrators are fully aware of the situation and let them deal with how they educate their staff and student body.

If some knucklehead does something that truely put's your kids life at risk take action then.

My son was accidentally exposed to peanut butter by the teacher in preschool when the class made Muddie Buddies. He vomited violently for what seemed like forever, his pulse raced, his body got cold to the touch, and he started breathing shallowly. He was exposed again by accent that Christmas when his grandma gave him a peanut M & M. Same reaction.

By now, the smell of peanut butter has become repulsive and fear inducing. Just the smell is now enough to trigger vomiting. As a couple of students teased him in kindergarten, he quietly steered away, embarrassed, not wanting to make a scene or be different than his classmates, yet he was terrified that they would touch him with it.

I think a simple introduction of reaction to severe allergies to the class may help prevent this in the future. Awareness, education. And, I have since taught my son to tell the teacher, because for him, it could become life threatening. Reactions to allergies often progressively become worse with each exposure.

We have to remember that these are children, and many of them are very young. They are testing limits of bullying and can be corrected with a quick-acting teacher and parent. They often back down when they realize the severity of the damage they could have done.

I am so concerned with some of the callous remarks here. When I looked at the number of people who said yes it was 400. That is 400 too many. I could tell you the reasons why – but then it feels like a waste of time. If a food was life threatening to you – and or your child you would understand and sigh at some of the ignorance of people who have no exposure to the results of the allergy. My son has a peanut allergy, exposed at 18 months. To this day he remembers the fear of feeling strangled by the reaction. As the person before me said – they become so aware that they can smell it from feet away. At 16 a kid thought it would be funny to see what happens, 3 days in the hospital and the fear of losing him. So I as a mom appreciate MSN having this survey and wanting to protect kids as well as raise the issue. My guess is someone had a reaction or saw someone who had a reaction and realized the magnitude of the problem. This is just another venue of raising the issue and the more it is raised the more people are aware of the seriousness. To say it is not worth the space or MSN time is just silly. To say it is not worth the space is just silly don’t read it – don’t comment – as they say – change the channel

You know, Some of you folks think this is a bunch of "Hoo Ha" but, let me tell you first hand. Its a sizable issue when you breathe in and it feels like you are trying to inhale the air out of a glass bottle and thats your only option for air. Anipyhlactic shock is no laughing matter or to poke fun at those that can have the potential. Would be the same as me saying your a pussy because you can't handle the heart attack that you may have. If yourself or your kids are high risk of food allergies, it is nothing to take lightly. I have Epi pens I travel with, have at my home and work areas. That sucker will save your life just like if someone had to do CPR because your heart stopped beating. Better think about it before you make anymore comments about "America going soft" or "my kids tough, he/she can handle anything"

After a skin test comes back positive for the food allergen, a blood test is done. For peanut, highly allergic is a reading of 15. My daughter's number is 100+. She once ate a piece of popcorn that simply touched a peanut, and she had hives head to toe and her throat started to swell. That tells me that she's highly allergic. For her, peanuts are equivalent to cyanide and yet I send her to school with her poison all around her. Imagine being in a room full of bees and being allergic. Imagine sending your child to school with the possibility of coming in contact with even a little bit of cyanide. You teach and empower her on how to stay away from kids with pb sandwiches and to deal with being excluded by not having that birthday cupcake that every other kid in the class is eating. And then someone shoves the cyanide in her face. And imagine then dealing with every single day in every function of your life. And then imagine your child is the one who caused my child to be hospitalized. I think we need a bit more empathy here.

where will those people who believe that we all should "toughen up buttercup" when being bullied using allergies be, when that first case comes up of a kid dying from an allergic reaction.?? will they still be there?

the problem is a) bullying is cowardice in it's most primitive form b) the bully does not know who really has a allergy so intense that they can die....how do you think that bully will feel when they find out they killed someone while in high school....should we wait until someone dies? really, is that what people want before they take this seriously?.....

I don't understand why people can't be sensitive about this. It would be like taking the crutches or wheelchair from a disabled kid or worse. Makes me wonder how many bullies we have here on newsvine.

My child did not have problems with other kids about her chocolate allergy. She had problems with a TEACHER! Teacher insisted white chocolate wasn't chocolate and insisted she eat it, then refused to let her go to the nurse when she was sick from it. I called the school when I found out and talked to the principal about it. I even had put down on the medical info for the school, NO CHOCOLATE, so there was no excuse.

As for me, I still run into problems with other people trying to "prove" to me my allergies are "in my head." I am allergic to everything citrus and have had people deliberately lie to me about orange and lemon in drinks and foods. A few years ago in a restaurant, the waitress brought me water with a lemon slice in it. I asked her to get me a fresh glass of water as I was allergic to lemon. She took it to a nearby drink-station and fished the lemon out with a spoon, stirring and squeezing it as she did so, and brought it back to me with lemon seeds floating in it.

There are different levels of food allergies. My daughter would break out from and get serious headaches from chocolate, but it was not life-threatening. I have to seriously limit eggs and milk, but I don't have to avoid them altogether. I break out and get some serious stomach upset if I have too much, but again, it is not life threatening.

But, some food allergies are certainly life threatening. If I have citrus of any kind, my throat swells and I struggle to breath. That is life threatening! And there are some people that have a life threatening reaction if they touch or breath what they are allergic to. I am hoping the people very ignorantly made comments along the lines of "toughen up" will think very seriously about this. Since when someone says they are allergic, you don't know if it is going to just make them sick, or threaten their life, isn't it best to just respect them and not bully them. And by bully, I don't mean teasing. I mean things like forcing the allergic substance on them, tricking them into eating or drinking it, refusing to make reasonable accomodations.

I think "something that truely puts your kids life at risk" is what we are talking about.  For people with peanut allegies, every exposure is a life-threatening exposure.  What researchers and doctors cannot predict is when an exposure will cause an anaphalactic response, in spite of the history of reactions to previous exposures.   It is the same as putting a non-allergic child in a basket with a live rattlesnake.  The rattler may not bite or might not inject too much venom, but who knows?  I hope you don't think THAT would be OK.  There obviously needs to be more education on this subject.

My child is 6, with severe allergies to milk, egg, and peanut, and we have been lucky so far, no major reactions when we (his parents) were not present and no teasing that I am aware of. We are also fortunate that he has a very good understanding of his allergies and makes supervising adults aware of them and has been advocating for himself since the age of 2. His kindergarten year was a big worry for me, because the teacher did not seem to have a grasp of the seriousness of the allergies and would often do assignments with M&M's (despite a discussion with her to please consider other options, such as Skittles that do not contain milk and have a lower peanut risk). Luckily, my son must ingest to induce a reaction and would simply put his M&M's in a plastic baggy while all his friends got to eat them. Fortunately, his first grade teacher is much more sympathetic. I provide the teacher, the school, the school nurse, and the district with the 3 page list of ingredients that he cannot have as well as a full page of treats that he CAN have. His teacher has been kind enough to distribute this to parents and they have been great about asking if certain treats are safe (for birthday party treat bags, etc). I also keep safe treats in his classroom for those days when other parents bring in cupcakes or cookies so he doesn't get left out and we take his very own cupcake to birthday parties and such. He takes his lunch and snacks with him every day to ensure safety and he loves it (and probably eats the healthiest of all of his friends because of it). If he's not sure about something, he doesn't eat it.

Sure, there is some over-reaction but until the general public has an understanding of just how serious food allergies can be, that over-reaction may be warranted. Having seen my child go into anaphalactic shock at the age of 5 months was one of the worst experiences of my life and not one I ever want to repeat, nor should any other parent. Would you purposely let a bee loose in a room with a child allergic to bees? Then why should we excuse teasing them with food that would induce the same kind of reaction?

So few adults realize the degree to which food allergies affect these kids, how can we expect the "normal" kids to? I can't tell you how many times I've had to explain that no, my child is NOT lactose intolerant, he is ALLERGIC. There is a big difference. One causes diarrhea and vomiting. The other causes DEATH. I find it simpler just to send everything for my kid and he knows better than to eat anything else. I'm sure he'll be bullied for it in the future, but I hope that we will have instilled the confidence in him to stand up for himself and report the incident to an adult.

I have 2 children with food allergies. Last year my son was in first grade and a classmate kept trying to touch him with food that he was allergic to. Another classmate told her mother about it and i asked him and he confirmed it was happening. He told me is afraid of getting sick. I went to his teacher and she spoke to the child. The school nurse also came into the classroom to discuss the seriousness of food allergies. Horrible that a 6 year old had to be put through this. My 5 year old has been left out of birthday parties because of her nut allergy. I think all schools should have allergy awareness workshops for students.