I have pondered that from time to time. It seems weird that suddenly peanut allergies are sky-rocketing when it never used to be such an issue. I had even seen a quote that cases of peanut allergies in America had tripled between 1997 and 2008 (I just looked that one up and it was based on the results of a telephone survey.....). So I had a quick flick through ever-trusty google and found that basically it isn't so much that allergies to peanuts are increasing dramatically as that the media has made it into "a thing".
The upshot is that there is no actual evidence of a rise in peanut allergies -- it is still relatively rare, and it may or may not be increasing -- but there is a lot more "awareness" about it in the general public than there used to be, probably much more so than for other types of food allergies, hence the over-use of kids-gloves. I guess for America in particular that is due in a big way to their sue-happy culture, the results of which then tend to permeate into other parts of the world.
I have pondered that from time to time. It seems weird that suddenly peanut allergies are sky-rocketing when it never used to be such an issue. I had even seen a quote that cases of peanut allergies in America had tripled between 1997 and 2008 (I just looked that one up and it was based on the results of a telephone survey.....). So I had a quick flick through ever-trusty google and found that basically it isn't so much that allergies to peanuts are increasing dramatically as that the media has made it into "a thing".
The upshot is that there is no actual evidence of a rise in peanut allergies -- it is still relatively rare, and it may or may not be increasing -- but there is a lot more "awareness" about it in the general public than there used to be, probably much more so than for other types of food allergies, hence the over-use of kids-gloves. I guess for America in particular that is due in a big way to their sue-happy culture, the results of which then tend to permeate into other parts of the world.
