Uh….no.
While General Mills’ decision to even make Peanut Butter Cheerios has inspired “outrage” from groups like “Allergy Moms” who are threatening a boycott, for typical parents tired of changing our kids’ lifestyle to accommodate over-protective parents, this is just another pain in our necks.
First of all, the box says “Peanut Butter” right across the front.
Second, only a fraction of people who think they have food allergies actually do:
the true incidence of food allergies is only about 8 percent for children and less than 5 percent for adults, said Dr. Marc Riedl, an author of the new paper and an allergist and immunologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Yet about 30 percent of the population believe they have food allergies. And, Dr. Riedl said, about half the patients coming to his clinic because they had been told they had a food allergy did not really have one.
Finally, stop telling me the peanuts are going to kill you:
A call to the CDC press office revealed that the number of deaths from food allergies, as collected from 2.5 million death certificates across the country, is miniscule. Only eleven people died from food allergies in 2005, the last year for which we have data available. More people died from lawnmower accidents.
"The truth is something [Warren] probably prefers not to confront. Harvard doesn’t come calling just because you’re a smart lawyer and a terrific teacher — not with Warren’s modest, Oklahoma upbringing and non-Ivy League education. She is not your typical Harvard professor. At a certain point, when the law school was under pressure to promote diversity, she represented a three-fer: a great lawyer with a national profile, a woman, and a minority, at least by virtue of family lore. "
-- Joan Vennochi
