There is a very good article in Child Magazine this month called Allergy Nation. The article does a great job of explaining what parents of child with food allergies deal with as well as how the children themselves cope. Also, it mentions how parents of non-allergic children often don't get it or feel bullied into not feeding their children the particular allergen.

The article also addresses the fact that some parents have filed civil rights complaints with the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) which is where the 504 plans come into play. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Two nut-allergic children in the Union County, NC, public schools were found by the DOE to have been harassed in separate incidents at Antioch Elementary School and Sun Valley Middle School. Among the shocking findings investigators documented: a parent of a nonallergic child announced at a PTO meeting that he'd continue sending his child to the elementary school with peanut butter sandwiches and tell his child to "smear" the peanut butter along the hallway walls.

Can you imagine?! Telling your child to intentionally harm another child?! It is outrageous but sadly what happens and what we might have to deal with. Recently, I saw a photo of a milk-allergic boy covered with hives after having a straw full of milk spit at him at school by another kid. (if you are interested - click here and then go to slide #7 (takes a minute to load)). The accompanying transcript can be found here (scroll down to pg 28-29).

Again, I know the 504 plan will not keep Jax (and eventually Cars) 100% safe but it ensures that we are doing all we can to keep him safe and live a relatively normal life. And it makes the schools responsible for providing a safe learning environment for them.

One sad note in the article cites a study that found children with peanut allergies have a lower quality of life that children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. How sad is that? :(