"I'll grant that anxieties about food allergies...may have outpaced the empirical realities. To go by the CDC's most recent numbers, something like a dozen Americans die of food allergies each year."
This was in response to a question about someone's relative who seemed to be faking food allergies-- and the ethicist's opinion went on from there.
In fact what made me the most frustrated perhaps was the casual throwaway of the lines above: "something like a dozen..." Really, I think it's been proven to be more than that and anyway-- to people who have real, documented food allergies the anxiety is real also-- and those anxieties are what keep us out of Emergency rooms and off the CDC numbers charts.
Because we are vigilant there aren't more kids dying. And the author of this piece neglects to say over 200,000 people show up in hospital ERs with food allergic anaphylaxis -- but they are treated so they don't die. And 200,000 is a lot more than about " a dozen..."
Education is a tough thing. Because we educate those in our own circles sometimes we forget that others come to food allergies from an outside perspective with no personal connection or experiences.
Here's where we still have to make a difference.
I'm certain that if The Erhicist had a child or partner or friend with food allergies this NYTimes piece would have leaned more on the experiential facts of our world and not simply a glib reboot of uninformed cocktail banter.
So let's not yell at or frighten or threaten those uninformed public or withdraw from the world in any way--instead let's get out there and educate!
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