G.R. Patterson III extrapolated from data available...



Jim Baker wrote:

My wife's college roommate's 12 year old son was allergic to peanuts.
He died from it. No bull. There's one.

The Knoxville News Sentinel has a columnist named Sam Venable. His son
is violently allergic to them. That's two.


Let's begin the head count, then....

One, two.......and at what number do you want the world to stop serving
peanuts? Do you want the airlines to be barred from serving an inexpensive
and at least filling snack beloved by many?

Millions of folks, any number of them legitimately, but a vast number of
them mostly in their imaginations, are at risk from reactions to a variety
of substances from every corner of the natural and laboratory spectrum.
Aside from those items which bear potential harm to a vast majority of
folks who may encounter them, it's simply ridiculous to attempt to
quarantine the "world" from substances which may endanger a few.

The positive contribution of peanuts to nutrition, the relief of hunger, or
the world's economies certainly outweighs the risk to the relatively small
population segment allergic to them.

......Unless you subscribe to the sort of world-view which favors
exterminating cobras, fer de lance and rattlesnakes because of the bad
reactions displayed by those bitten. S

hucks, I want to ban California Reds because they make me sneeze...but
since I certainly can't drink French Reds these days, wouldn't drink German
reds short of desperation, and am faced by shelves stocked with less than
the optimal choices of Italian reds, I guess I'll have to switch to the
oligarchic, nearly slave-labor produced right wing wines of Chile, accept
the narrow spectrum of somewhat over-priced but drinkable local Texas reds,
or do as I do, just keep on sneezing.

TMO