Peanuts, Cracker Jack banned from minor league ballpark

[Anti Federalist]

Perhaps instead of running around banning $#@!, maybe start asking just what the $#@! is in the air food or water that is causing this.

Because, like Winston Smith, I remember the past, and I can recall of nobody suffering from fatal peanut allergies forty years ago.



You're out! Peanuts, Cracker Jack banned from minor league ballpark

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...st/2846703002/

Zlati Meyer, USA TODAY Published 2:27 p.m. ET Feb. 12, 2019 | Updated 4:21 p.m. ET Feb. 12, 2019

Could it be the start of a trend? Time

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack? Not anymore at Dunkin’ Donuts Park, where the Hartford (Connecticut) Yard Goats play.

This season, the Class AA affiliate of the Colorado Rockies is becoming what's believed to be the one of the first professional sports venue to go completely – and permanently –peanut-free.

Peanuts are one of the most common and deadliest allergies in the U.S, especially among children, like seven-year-old Henry Blakesley of Wrentham, Massachusetts.

"Baseball games are really challenging for someone with a nut allergy, because everyone's throwing shells around," said his father, Ben. "For my son, if he has any kind of contact, if he steps on a peanut and takes off his shoe, he could go into anaphylactic shock. A lot of people think if they have an EpiPen, they’re fine, but it's not enough. If the airway closes, that’s it for them."

The Yard Goats' decision stemmed from conversations with local parents who have kids with peanut allergies, according to team president Tim Restall, who was moved by stories of trick-or-treating with gloves on, bringing one's own cupcakes to classmates' birthday parties and sitting in a separate area of the school cafeteria. Like other teams in pro sports, the Yard Goats had previously held the occasional peanut-free game, which included banning the offending legumes and doing a deep clean of the stadium.

"They can still eat peanuts at home," he said. "We want this ballpark to be everyone's ballpark. ... If we can make their experience at the ballpark normal, but eliminate one food item, it’s the right thing to do."

Dunkin' Donuts Park sells more than 200 foods and beverages, Restall added. In addition to peanuts and Cracker Jack, a peanut topping for sundaes was also eliminated and the Yard Goats checked with the company whose name is emblazoned on the venue to make sure the food it serves there doesn't include peanuts. Plus, fans, whose bags are checked upon entering, are not allowed to bring peanuts in from outside.

In the U.S., 2.2 percent of children and 1.8 percent of adults have peanut allergies, according to the Virginia-based advocacy group Food Allergy Research and Education.

Peanuts are among the eight foods that account for 90 percent of food allergic reactions, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found.

The Yard Goats are losing money from the decision, Restall said. The ballpark's food-service contractor gives the team a percentage of what's sold and last year that included 10,432 bags of peanuts at $4 each and 2,262 boxes of Cracker Jack for $3.75 a pop – more than $50,000 in snacks.

The larger economic impact of the peanut ban remains to be seen. It could increase sales – due to the national attention and the influx of allergic fans making the trek from other states – or cost the team money as a result of irate team supporters directing their devotion elsewhere.

"There's social value in being sensitive," said New York University marketing professor Henry Assael. "I view it as a trade-off as publicity for a minor league team that's not very well known, latching on to a particular health issue, versus possibly alienating some of their fans, because peanuts are a food traditionally associated with baseball."

Plenty of people on social media booed the Yard Goats' announcement. Some mocked the decision -- like by demanding vegan hot dogs be served in the ballpark, too -- while other were mad that the iconic experience of watching America's pasttime, as memorialized in the 1908 Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer classic song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," was going the way of flat bats.

Ben Blakesley is a big baseball fan, as is his son, but until now, he could take his first-grader to a game only when he had access to a suite, where he could make sure no peanuts were served, or on the couple of peanut-free games held throughout the season.

"This is a huge opportunity to expose him to the game at the professional level. He plays Little League. I coach his team," Blakesley said. "If they get down to a personal level and they met my son, Henry, would they be OK with saying, 'I don’t care about putting your life at risk, because I need my peanuts'?"

[Stratovarious]

I have read many times that peanut allergies are related to 'contents' of vaccines.
Growing up, there was NEVER anyone having a problem with peanuts.
Maybe we can get a vAXXER in here to straighten me out, quick....
Cause I'm thinking of making a pj samich' .

[Dr.3D]

I have read many times that peanut allergies are related to 'contents' of vaccines.
Growing up, there was NEVER anyone having a problem with peanuts.
Maybe we can get a vAXXER in here to straighten me out, quick....
Cause I'm thinking of making a pj samich' .

Yes, I've often thought the use of peanut oil in vaccines may have vaccinated kids against peanuts.

[brushfire]

The unintended consequences of shielding our children from the world. This allergy phenomenon is caused by doctors. Also, this allergy crisis is almost exclusive to the US.

Worth a watch, and covers this very topic.

[euphemia]

As a medically diagnosed allergy patient, I believe it is because we import most food from other countries. 150 years ago food allergies were unheard of. People ate a locally grown, seasonal diet, so they had natural immunity. Who knows what’s in the soil or fertilizer in Guatemala or Brazil? Certainly not something an urban American kid would have been exposed to.

[angelatc]

As a medically diagnosed allergy patient, I believe it is because we import most food from other countries. 150 years ago food allergies were unheard of. People ate a locally grown, seasonal diet, so they had natural immunity. Who knows what’s in the soil or fertilizer in Guatemala or Brazil? Certainly not something an urban American kid would have been exposed to.

I think you're on the right track.

There are a couple of theories for the rise in peanut allergies. Scott Sicherer, director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, points to the “hygiene hypothesis,” or the idea that humans are a lot “cleaner” now than we were generations ago—fewer of us are living on farms and being exposed to livestock, we use antibacterial soap frequently, and our homes and streets aren’t as littered with garbage and sewage.

All of that makes for a better life, but that can come at the cost of our immune systems.

“Our immune system was designed to fight germs—with fewer germs the immune system can get misdirected and attack innocent proteins, like food,” Sicherer says.

Another possible reason? Peanut allergies have earned such a reputation for being life-threatening that parents aren’t giving children peanut-filled foods at all, making them even more susceptible to allergies.

[Origanalist]

I really never thought I would live to see Cracker Jacks banned, in a ball park at that.

In a totally unrelated occurrence, astronomers just announced the Milky Way is warped...


View larger. | Artist’s concept – said to be “slightly exaggerated” – of the real shape of our warped and twisted Milky Way galaxy. Image via Xiaodian Chen (NAO, CAS)/Science in Public . (this could explain a lot of things)

[loveshiscountry]

As a medically diagnosed allergy patient, I believe it is because we import most food from other countries. 150 years ago food allergies were unheard of. People ate a locally grown, seasonal diet, so they had natural immunity. Who knows what’s in the soil or fertilizer in Guatemala or Brazil? Certainly not something an urban American kid would have been exposed to.

Are there other foods that have had a huge increase in allergies?

[Stratovarious]

I misread the title, I thought this was going to be about
The Crackers and Water Melon Ban.
:shrugs:

[oyarde]

When I was a kid I would rather have a beer & hot dog at the ball park .

[Stratovarious]

When I was a kid I would rather have a beer & hot dog at the ball park .

I wouldn't know about that, I quit drinking when I was 9 under doctors advice.

[specsaregood]

When I was a kid I would rather have a beer & hot dog at the ball park .

When I was a kid, it was more fun and profitable to sell peanuts than hotdogs at the ballgame. Peanuts you got to toss/throw to people, hotdogs you had to put on a glove, get the hotdog out of the boiling water you carried around, and prepare it with condiments. I made a lot more money the games I got to sell peanuts at.

[donnay]

Merck’s Peanut Oil Adjuvant
by Marco Cáceres
Published November 23, 2015 | Vaccination, History

On September 19, 1964, an article titled “Peanut Oil Used In A New Vaccine” appeared in The New York Times.1 It was written by Stacey V. Jones. The piece noted that an influenza vaccine, which had just recently been patented by Merck & Co., Inc., carried a key ingredient known as Adjuvant 65, which contained peanut oil. The adjuvant, aimed at slowly releasing antigens to “stimulate the creation of antibodies,” was described as “an emulsion of refined peanut oil in water to which are added an emulsifier and a stabilizer.”1

The vaccine was developed by Allen F. Woodhour, PhD and Dr. Thomas B. Stim over the course of six years as part of a partnership between the Merck Institute for Therapeutic Research and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, PA.1

According to the Times article, the vaccine was still under study at the time and had not been licensed for “general use,” although clinical trials had been conducted on 880 individuals, who had been given the killed influenza virus containing Adjuvant 65.1 A report published in The New England Journal of Medicine on September 3, 1964 described the “clinical and immunologic findings” of the trials on the participants, which resulted in the “development of a new and highly effective adjuvant, called adjuvant 65.”2

On January 12, 1967, The New England Journal of Medicine published another report evaluating Adjuvant 65 for “human use.”3 The authors of the report, led by Robert E. Weibel, MD and Allen F. Woodhour, PhD, described Adjuvant 65 as follows:

The adjuvant preparation consisted of a water-in-peanut-oil emulsion of aqueous vaccine employing mannide mano-oleate (Arlacel A) as emulsifier and aluminum monostearate as stabilizer.3

The desirability for maximal purity of antigens included in adjuvant formulations led to the development of a highly purified aqueous influenza-virus vaccine that has been tested both as aqueous material and incorporated into adjuvant 65 with excellent results.3

The authors wrote that the aim of their report was to describe…

the antibody responses in children and in older persons to a highly purified bivalent influenza-virus vaccine in adjuvant 65 compared with those obtained with the purified and ordinary Sharples-concentrated aqueous vaccines. The vaccines were bivalent and contained only contemporary influenza A2 and B strains.3

According to the report, the clinical trials with Adjuvant 65-containing vaccines were performed at the Pennhurst State School and St. Joseph’s Children’s and Maternity Home in Pennsylvania. Both of those institutions cared for “mentally retarded” individuals. The “investigations” were undertaken with the “concurrence of the medical and supervisory staffs of the institutions and with the approval of the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children.” The participants in “Study 55” at Pennhurst were mostly adults, while those in “Study 63” were children.3

In her book The Peanut Allergy Epidemic: What’s Causing It and How to Stop It, Heather Fraser notes that Merck ultimately decided not to “pursue” Adjuvant 65 for use in vaccines licensed for use in the United States. She cites concerns about the emulsifier Arlacel A—that it “appeared to induce tumors in mice.”4

According to a report by published in Clinical Microbiology Reviews by Sook-San Wong and Richard J. Webby of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN:

Currently licensed adjuvants for vaccine usage include aluminum salt (alum) and the squalene oil-in-water emulsion systems MF59 (Novartis) and AS03 (GlaxoSmithKline). MF59 has been licensed for use with seasonal vaccines in the elderly in some countries, while ASO3 has been used in conjunction with monovalent preparations of inactivated 2009 pandemic H1N1 and prepandemic H5N1 virus vaccines.5


Oil in water vaccine adjuvants have always been controversial because they stimulate an abnormally strong immune response that may lead to immune disorders.6 Reports of squalene adjuvanted experimental anthrax vaccines were linked to autoimmune disorders in Gulf War veterans,7 although the U.S. Department of Defense continues to deny that squalene adjuvants were used in anthrax vaccines given to military personnel.

GlaxoSmithKline’s ASO3 adjuvanted H1N1 pandemic influenza vaccine used in Europe and other parts of the world in 2009-2010 have been associated with narcolepsy, an autoimmune disorder.8 9 In 2013, the FDA licensed the first squalene (AS03) adjuvanted H5N1 influenza A “bird flu” vaccine for national emergency stockpiles.10 In September 2015, the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted to approve fast track licensure of a squalene (MF59) adjuvanted influenza vaccine for use in the elderly, but vaccine safety advocates voiced concern about lack of adequate scientific evidence the oily adjuvant has been proven safe for use in U.S. seniors.11 12

References:

1 Jones SV. Peanut Oil Used In A New Vaccine. The New York Times Sept. 19, 1964.
2 Stokes J, Weibel RE, Drake ME, Woodhour AF, Hilleman MR. New Metabolizable Immunologic Adjuvant for Human Use—Efficacy and Toxicity Studies in Man. The New England Journal of Medicine 964; 271:479-487.
3 Weibel RE, Woodhour AF, Stokes J, Metzgar DP, Hilleman MR. New Metabolizable Immunologic Adjuvant for Human Use—Evaluation of Highly Purified Influenza-Virus Vaccine in Adjuvant 65. The New England Journal of Medicine 1967; 276:78-84
4 Fraser H. The Peanut Allergy Epidemic: What’s Causing It and How to Stop It.
5 Wong SS, Webby RJ. Traditional and New Influenza Vaccines. American Society for Microbiology, Clinical Microbiology Reviews July 2013.
6 Defense Health Agency. The Facts on Squalene. Immunization Healthcare Branch.
7 Autoimmune Technologies, LLC. Anti-Squalene Antibodies Link Gulf War Syndrome to Anthrax Vaccine.
8 Barker CS, Snape MD. Pandemic influenza A H1N1 vaccines and narcolepsy: vaccine safety surveillance in action. The Lancet Dec. 19, 2013.
9 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vaccine Safety, Narcolepsy Following Pandemrix Influenza Vaccination in Europe.
10 La Vigne P. FDA Approves Experimental H5N1 Bird Flu Vaccine with Reactive AS03 Adjuvant for U.S. Stockpile. NVIC Newsletter Dec. 9, 2013.
11 Medscape.
12 National Vaccine Information Center. NVIC Questions FDA Fast Tracking of Squalene Adjuvanted Flu Vaccine. The Vaccine Reaction Sept. 16, 2015.

https://thevaccinereaction.org/2015/...-oil-adjuvant/

No worries though they have a vaccine to help treat the allergies now.


Peanut allergies may soon be treated with a vaccine
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321467.php

[donnay]

Are there other foods that have had a huge increase in allergies?

Eggs and dairy.

Vaccines Cause Allergies

Recent evidence indicates that routine childhood vaccinations contribute to the emergence of chronic allergic problems such as eczema, ear infections, and asthma. A growing number of scientists and physicians maintain that most standard vaccinations permanently disturb the developing immune system, setting the stage for hypersensitive reactions to foods and other common substances. In fact, childhood illnesses such as measles, mumps, and whooping cough may actually reduce the risk of allergy, says Konrad Kail, N.D.

Vaccines clog our lymphatic system and lymph nodes with large protein molecules which have not been adequately broken down by our digestive processes, since vaccines by pass digestion with injections. This is why vaccines are linked to allergies, because they contain large proteins which as circulating immune complexes (CICs) or "klinkers" which cause our body to become allergic.

Approximately 20 percent of children may outgrow their allergies, but with the increased frequency of recommended vaccines before the age of 3, severe allergic reactions will likely increase.

Egg is the second most common food allergy in early childhood. Approx 1.5 to 3.2 percent of all children under 3 have an egg allergy. It is fast becoming a recognized fact that those with an egg allergy should consult their doctor before receiving a vaccination. This is because occasionally vaccines are grown in cell cultures of chick embryo’s and may cause a reaction. An example of this is the MMR. https://calorielab.com/news/2011/01/...ood-allergies/

One of the first vaccines given to children, DTaP10, contains casein. Casein allergy coincidently appears in children in the first few months of life. Another vaccine given to children at two months of age is the Pneumococcal conjugate (PCV7). Each serotype for this vaccine is grown in soy peptone broth. A soy allergy is most common in infants and is usually noticed by 3 months of age...coincidence?

Injections have been used to create allergies in test animals. Any food protein remaining in the vaccine from the culture medium or diluent oils when injected along with an adjuvant can cause a food allergy.

http://preventdisease.com/news/12/06...ue-Cause.shtml

[Superfluous Man]

As a medically diagnosed allergy patient, I believe it is because we import most food from other countries. 150 years ago food allergies were unheard of. People ate a locally grown, seasonal diet, so they had natural immunity. Who knows what’s in the soil or fertilizer in Guatemala or Brazil? Certainly not something an urban American kid would have been exposed to.

I don't know what all has changed, and if some of the food allergies we see today really are new. Maybe they are.

But if someone with the food allergies of some people I know had been born 150 years ago, they would have died in infancy, and nobody would have known why. And whereas there weren't lots of people back then living normal lives with severe food allergies, there were lots more people dying in infancy for unknown causes.

[heavenlyboy34]

Cool story-peanuts are legumes, not nuts. http://www.peanut-institute.org/peanut-facts/

[Zippyjuan]

Couple of things. One, many people think they are allergic to some food when they are not really. Maybe they had some stomach discomfort after eating something. Also any real allergies may change over time- especially for kids. They grow out of them. Also skin allergy tests have a high rate of false positive results.

A second potential issue is fear of food allergies. That leads parents to avoid giving certain foods to kids. Since they are not exposed to them, when they do eat a certain food, the body does not recognize it and classifies it as a foreign object to attack. Give your kids peanuts and they will not develop peanut allergies (unless they have something genetic going on).

https://www.foodallergy.org/life-wit...food-allergies

The results showed that children who were introduced to peanut before age 1 and who regularly ate food that contain peanut had a much lower chance (81 percent) of developing peanut allergy. Meanwhile, the children who avoided peanuts during the five-year study had a higher chance of developing the food allergy.

One year later, a follow-up study called Persistence of Oral Tolerance to Peanut (LEAP-On) demonstrated that this approach prevents, rather than delays, food allergy. The same children who ate peanut as infants could avoid the food from ages 5 to 6, and still not develop peanut allergy.

In this study, only 12% of people previously considered to have food allergies actually had a bad reaction in a lab situation.

https://www.foodallergy.org/about-fa...ood-challenges

Some, but not all, of the patients had positive skin prick test results prior to their OFC. Historically, about 50 to 60 percent of skin prick tests and blood tests for food allergy have been found to give false positive results, in which the tests indicate the presence of food allergy even though the patient can eat the food without reacting. High false positive rates for skin prick and blood tests are among the reasons that researchers are interested in assessing the safety of OFCs.

In the study, the rate of allergic reactions observed during 6,377 OFCs was estimated at 14 percent. Two percent of the OFCs resulted in anaphylaxis. Of the 3,127 OFCs for which treatment data was available, 14 percent required treatment, most frequently with antihistamine, which was given in three-quarters of treated reactions.

Epinephrine was given for 14 percent of the treated reactions. Sixty-three OFCs, or roughly one percent of OFCs in the study, resulted in epinephrine treatment. Nineteen reactions resulted in hospitalization. Previous reports of anaphylaxis risk for non-research OFCs ranged from 6 to 33 percent. This difference may reflect that the patient population in this study included many patients described as low risk.

The finding that most patients (86 percent) completed the OFC without an allergic reaction suggests that, at least among diagnosed patients considered to be at low risk, a significant fraction may not have clinical allergy, for example, because they have outgrown a previous allergy or because their diagnosis was based on false positive test results. When food allergy is diagnosed inaccurately, quality of life suffers. Avoiding foods that can safely be eaten leads to needless anxiety and exclusion. Free-from foods are typically more expensive and less widely available. And removing common food allergens from the diet can increase the risk of nutrient deficiencies. The study concludes with the recommendation that open OFC is generally safe and that allergists should use this diagnostic test when indicated.

Get dirty. And put down the sanitizer.

Children are actually increasingly allergic to anti-bacterial products, many which are ironically supposed to prevent allergies.

Whilst children living in farms were previously directly exposed to animals, and their environment contained a range of microbial agents and plant derived agents, most of us now live in cities where we have minimal exposure to animals. We know that children with regular contact with farm animals have a lower incidence of allergy. Inadequate exposure to environmental micro-organisms may therefore result in the immune system of atopic children developing a tendency towards allergy.

Previous studies have shown that children in daycares, known to be hotbeds for spreading germs, have fewer allergies than those raised at home with less contact with other kids, said Dr. Richard Honsinger, an allergist and immunologist at Los Alamos Medical Care Clinic in New Mexico.

Young children who share their home with dogs or cats in the first year of life are half as likely to become allergic to those animals than kids who grew up with no pets. Young children who share their home with two dogs or cats in the first year of life are half as likely to become allergic to those animals than kids who grew up with only one dog or cat, or no pets.

https://www.preventdisease.com/news/...creasing.shtml

[Suzanimal]

Well, that's gonna make singing Take me out to the Ballgame during the seventh inning stretch a little awkward.

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks... o_O