With peanut allergies in children on the rise, advocacy groups are fighting to get peanuts banned from schools, airlines, and other public environments.

Most peanut allergies are life-threatening and therefore a serious risk to a growing number of children today.  Food allergy moms agree, “We don’t leave other hazardous materials around for our children to stumble upon, why shouldn’t peanuts be treated similarly?”

Some schools have already taken initiative to address these concerns requiring all food brought into the school to be store-bought and clearly labeled, creating “nut free” tables in their cafeterias, and working to have epinephrine stocked among general school supplies.

Many airlines have replaced traditional peanut snacks with pretzels or cookies, and others are happy to oblige passengers with peanut allergies during mandatory peanut free flights.  But it’s easy to make a mistake and food allergy mom, Becky Purser says, “With so many other good snack options that aren’t among common allergens, why risk even having the most commonly dangerous foods on board at all?”

This seems to make sense considering the fact that most airlines do not allow pregnant women to fly if they are too close to their due date.  It’s not worth the risk to have a medical emergency on board because getting to a hospital in a timely manner would not be possible.  Shouldn’t the airlines be equally interested in avoiding the risk of life-threatening anaphylactic emergencies as well?

Medical researchers are also working to avoid life threatening peanut allergy emergencies through immunotherapy and DNA testing, and other health professionals are working hard to help parents, educators, and caregivers better handle anaphylactic emergencies by making epinephrine and first aid training more readily available.