| My son has multiple severe nut allergies so I’ve gone from having zero awareness to having too much. Allergies are fascinating bc they are a continuum and random. Continuum from… zero symptoms if you eat the protein in the nut and just a positive blood test… all the way to… cannot be in same room as nuts if they will have a reaction that constricts their ability to breath. They are also random in that your outcome can be wildly different each time. The result imo is that drs who detect any food allergy, let’s say the child has a slightly swollen lip after eating sesame will run labs on blood and skin and get some real positives and some false positives. Next they say not to eat anything the person is allergic to in order to prevent a life threatening allergy. If no blood or skin tests existed this person may go through life mainly avoiding the food bc it’s uncomfortable, but never think of themselves as allergic to X. Net result is that people with allergies are safer now, but the % of people we know have allergies has increased. As a side note, if you are reading this as a parent with a kid with a recently discovered food allergy, please note… it totally sucks, but… you will adjust over time to the higher workload and constant label reading, hang in there. |
Percentage of kods who are left handed has increased after we stopped beating them at school into being right handed.