Almost as shocking in the research conducted by the Icahn School of Medicine at the Mount Sinai Medical Center was that about half (48 percent) of the kids’ parents were unaware that the bullying had been taking place.

The study, which appeared in the online version of Pediatrics, was led by Dr. Eyal Shemesh, an associate professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Mount Sinai. It involved surveying 251 pairs of parents and children, who were asked to answer questionnaires during routine allergy clinic visits.

Both the children being bullied and their parents reported higher stress levels and lower quality of life, even when the parents had no idea that bullying was taking place.

“When parents are aware of the bullying, the child’s quality of life is better,” senior author Dr. Scott Sicherer noted in a press release about the study.

“Parents and pediatricians should routinely ask children with food allergy about bullying,” recommended his colleague Dr. Shemesh. “Finding out about the child’s experience might allow targeted interventions, and would be expected to reduce additional stress and improve quality of life for these children.”

This survey bolsters earlier Mount Sinai research on bullying and food allergies. A 2010 study, the first to look at bullying and food allergies in children, found strikingly similar results: about one-third of children with food allergies were bullied explicitly because of their allergy. Nearly half had had their allergen waved in their face by a teasing classmate.

Researchers are hoping the new study will help to improve quality of life and raise awareness among parents, school staff and physicians through proactive efforts to prevent and root out bullying targeted towards children with food allergies.

But in real life, Julie Bowen is one of us: an allergy mom with a son at risk of anaphylaxis. She found out the hard way – through an anaphylactic reaction – that her son, now 5 years old, has severe allergies to peanuts, walnuts and bee stings.

Recently, on the Anderson Live talk show with Anderson Cooper, Bowen described how her son at  the age of 2 ate peanut butter for the second or third time and “and, conveniently, was stung by a bee seconds later and went into full anaphylaxis.”

Well aware that her son now spends his daytime hours at school, and in the care of teachers and other staff, Bowen is raising awareness through Mylan Specialty’s “Get Schooled in Anaphylaxis” campaign at www.Anaphylaxis101.com. (Mylan is the manufacturer of the EpiPen brand auto-injector.)

In a news release, Bowen said her child received “immediate medical care and recovered quickly, but it was a wake-up call that anaphylaxis can occur anywhere and at any time, even when you may not think your child is at risk.”

The campaign strives to get local school communities involved in allergy awareness. A key component is the Get Schooled in Anaphylaxis Challenge. To take part in this essay contest, U.S. students in Grades 1 through 12 should submit an essay to suggest ways their own schools can improve allergy accommodations to support food (and sting) allergic students. The prize is impressive: a $2,000 college scholarship.

The submission rules are: 

• for Grades 1-4 – 50-150 words;
• for Grades 5-8 – 150-250 words;
• and for Grades 9-12 – 400-500 words. The final day for submissions is November 9.

“Through the Get Schooled in Anaphylaxis Challenge, students across the country will have the opportunity to educate their peers and help everyone be more aware of life-threatening allergies,” Bowen says.

The campaign site also offers helpful information about food and insect allergies and numerous resources for schools and caregivers.

Essential Related Reading: Time to End Food Allergy Tragedies

He fled to find the school nurse – as his mom had told him to do if he ever felt unsafe at school.

Cheryl Dorsey was volunteering on a first-grade field trip with her daughter Anna’s class in Huntington Beach, California, when a girl took a sandwich from her lunch bag and waved it in Anna’s face.

“I brought peanut butter; you can’t eat peanut butter!” she chanted. Shaken, Dorsey quickly moved her daughter, who is allergic to dairy, peanuts, tree nuts and sunflower seeds, to a picnic spot away from her classmates. And then she quietly told the other girl, “It is not nice to bully people.”

Bullying isn’t nice, and can be downright dangerous when it’s coupled with the risk of anaphylaxis, a life-threatening condition that can be set off by trace amounts and accidental ingestion. A study published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in October 2010 found that an astounding one in three children with food allergies has experienced bullying, harassment or teasing because of their allergies – most of it occurring in the supposed safety of school.

From the humiliation of taunts like “peanut kid” to the terror of an allergic reaction, the emotional impact of bullying just adds to the stress carried by allergic kids – and their parents. What’s more, says the survey’s lead author, Dr. Scott Sicherer, comparison to an earlier study showed that food-allergic children in Grades 6 to 10 were more than twice as likely to be bullied as non-allergic students.

While the prevalence of allergy bullying seems high, it didn’t surprise Sicherer, an allergist and professor of pediatrics with the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He has been hearing bullying stories for years from the kids and parents he sees in his practice. Sicherer even speculates that, since the roughly 350 responses to the survey were almost entirely from parents, there may be even more incidents than the data captured, as some kids don’t tell.

(The survey grouped the terms bullying, harassment and teasing in order to cover the big picture, so it did not isolate bullying in its specific sense: repeated behavior that is intended to harm, occurring where there is an imbalance of power. However, the survey did find that the behavior was repeated in 86 percent of cases.)

Despite the numbers, the deliberate targeting of kids with food allergies seems to slip under the radar of many in the education system. We raised the question with about a dozen experts from across North America, including teachers, principals, an anti-bullying parent advocate, a school board trustee, and a safe-schools supervisor. All were highly aware of both anaphylaxis and bullying issues, but none had heard of the link between the two.

Ask someone in the allergy community, however, and the floodgates open. Parents have traded harrowing stories on the Allergic Living Facebook page: a bully licking an allergic child’s pencils and erasers after consuming an allergen; one child chasing another with his allergen; students handing out a packaged snack in class and refusing to let an allergic child read the label. Staffers at the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (now known as FARE) and at Anaphylaxis Canada also report hearing numerous stories of bullying.

Next page: Why allergic kids are targeted

Allergic Living wants to hear:
Who is this special person?
What is it that she or he does that is unique in making food-allergic students safer and more included at school?

E-mail: editor@allergicliving.com
Pls. write in the subject field: Safe school nomination

Sample Letter of Support for the School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act

Note:  Please paraphrase. It is important that Senators do not receive duplicates of the same letter from different individuals.

The Honorable (insert Senator’s name)

United States Senate

Washington, DC  20510

Dear Senator (insert name):

I am writing to ask you to co-sponsor S. 1884, the School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act, introduced by Senators Dick Durbin and Mark Kirk. I am the parent of a child with severe food allergies.  (Personalize here by inserting a brief description of your child’s allergies.)

Children with food allergies are at risk for anaphylaxis, a serious allergic reaction that is rapid in onset and may cause death. To prevent death, anaphylaxis must be treated promptly with an injection of epinephrine. The Durbin-Kirk bill would encourage states to ensure that epinephrine is available in schools and that school personnel are trained to administer it in an emergency. Epinephrine is safe and easy to administer. Children are able to self-administer the medication, and any adult working in a school would be capable of learning how to administer epinephrine in a matter of minutes.

Nearly 6 million American children have potentially life-threatening food allergies. Schools need to be prepared to treat allergic reactions in the event a student’s personal epinephrine auto-injector isn’t available or the student is having a reaction for the first time.

The School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act is not a controversial bill. It is endorsed by the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network, the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the National Association of School Nurses. On average it will cost a school just over $100 to have epinephrine available to prevent a fatality from anaphylaxis. This is a small price to pay to save the life of a child.

I hope you will co-sponsor the Durbin-Kirk bill and work to assure passage of this legislation. Thank you for considering my views.

Sincerely,

We have one, and it’s the greatest group of advocates our school district has ever had to increase education and awareness of food allergies, and to keep children with life-threatening food allergies safe at school.

Life Before the Task Force

Before our task force was created, each parent of a child with food allergies had to train the teacher and school administrators about food allergies and what accommodations would be necessary to keep their individual child safe. In a district of over 23,000 students, we had almost 300 students with food allergies in 2007. (That number is up to 600 today.)

Each school was trying to develop its own set of best practices, yet there was no systematic way to share information about successes and challenges from one school in the district to another. Each time a new student with food allergies showed up at a school, there was another reinvention of the wheel.

How the Task Force Came to Be

Some parents of children with food allergies became frustrated and sent letters and e-mails to the superintendent and school board, asking that a standard set of guidelines be developed to assist every school in our district to appropriately manage food allergies. Our school district, Academy District 20 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, formed a Food Allergy Task Force in response to these concerns. The school district’s superintendent supported and encouraged the group’s work.

Who’s Part of the Task Force?

Founding members included three principals (one from each level), five parents, a school nurse, the food services director, the district Section 504 coordinator, the director for legal relations and the chief operating officer. It was important to include all of these stakeholders to ensure that information was gathered to create complete guidelines for a child in the classroom, on the school bus and in the cafeteria – to name just a few. Since the group formed, others have joined, including a local physician specializing in treating children with severe allergies and asthma, three parents and two more school nurses.

Next: What the Task Force Does

Indie Candy to the rescue! The Alabama-based company, which ships to the U.S. and Canada, has created a “Back to School Allergy-Free Bucket” that will please parents, teachers and students alike. (One of Allergic Living’s contributors said she would have given her right arm for this product when her child was in elementary school.) Each box includes cookies, gummies and lollipops, and can be customized for your child’s specific allergies. Click here for more info (and see picture, below).

Indie Candy's "Back to School Allergy Free Bucket"

But what about everyday snacks to send in your allergic child’s lunch box? We’re thrilled to report that allergy-friendly cookies have come a loooong way in recent years. As in, they’re delicious, and in most cases, you really can’t tell that you’re not eating butter, flour, milk, eggs, etc. A few examples:

• Home Free’s delectable little cookies, include chocolate chip, vanilla and oatmeal varieties, all of which are free of peanuts, tree nuts, dairy, eggs. Some flavors are gluten-free, too.

• Our taste-testers give high marks to Dr. Lucy’s selection of cookies. The Sugar Cookies, for example, are made without peanuts, nuts, wheat flour, milk or eggs – but your taste buds won’t be able to tell! (FYI, they do contain soy and oats.)

• Enjoy Life’s Crunchy Cookies. They’re gluten-free, free of the top eight allergens, and also made without casein, potato, sesame and sulfites. Of course, your kids will just like how tasty they are.

• Muffin bars will make your child the envy of the other kids in class. New from Ange-Gardien, free of most top allergens (contain soy), and in dynamic Intense Chocolate, Rasperry and Banana Chocolate flavors.

• We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the cookies by Sweet Alexis. Mmmm, chocolate chip – but free of dairy, egg, tree nut and peanut.

• Also new and impressive for Canadian customers are Tho’z Barz. These are moist and delicious, allergy-friendly snack bars. Organic and farm fresh. They don’t contain wheat, they do have oats.

University is a time of great transition, especially for food allergic students navigating meal plans, shared kitchens and pub nights. Allergic Living examines how prepared students – and institutions – are to handle this brave new reality.

Food Allergy: Teens Talk About It

Teens with food allergies face the biggest risks of reactions of any age group. Here, six students discuss what it’s like to be allergic in high school.

Dating (and Kissing) in High School

When teens start dating, they need to be aware of the very real risk of being exposed to allergens through a kiss.

The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network led the lobby for FAAMA, which will result in voluntary allergy management guidelines for schools across the United States. FAAN started pressing for the legislation back in 2005, when it held the first of three Kids’ Congresses on Capitol Hill.

Allergic Living Editor Gwen Smith interviews Chris Weiss, FAAN’s vice president of Advocacy and Government Relations, about FAAMA and what the guidelines will mean for American students at risk of anaphylaxis.

Q&A: WHAT FAAMA WILL MEAN

Gwen Smith: First, congratulations on FAAMA’s passing – after all the hard work.
Chris Weiss: Thank you.

GS: There was a lot of delay with this bill. After 5 years of lobbying, how did FAAMA finally get passed?

CW: Senator [Christopher] Dodd from Connecticut, early in 2010, was able to insert FAAMA into the larger Food Safety Bill. The reason he did that – and it was very smart on his part – was because Congress was pretty busy last year and the chance of Congress considering FAAMA as a standalone bill became sort of unlikely.
The chance of Congress considering the Food Safety Bill, however, became probable. And so Dodd was able to insert FAAMA into the larger Food Safety Bill [officially known as the Food Safety Modernization Act].

GS: The food allergy community is excited by FAAMA’s success. But can you tell readers: What does this new law mean?

CW: It simply calls on the federal government to create food allergy management guidelines for the schools. This is a tremendous thing because, to date, there has been no guidance from the federal level at all on food allergies. A few states have published guidelines, some school districts have done so, some individual schools have done so. But there was nothing coming down from the federal level.

GS: And why is that so important Chris?

CW: Well basically because it gives any school in the U.S. – in any state, in any town, in any city – it gives them something to look to if they need help managing students with food allergies. In essence, we sort of killed 50 birds with one stone by passing this law. Any federal guidance [in the guidelines] would be applicable to all 50 states.

GS: Allergic Living is getting some specific questions such as: “But I live in New York state and there’s a law, or in Massachusetts, we already food allergy guidelines in the state. How will FAAMA work in conjunction with what’s already in place in those states?

CW: This is a good question. There are about 12 states that already have published food allergy management guidelines for schools. Roughly 12, give or take one. If you look at all of those documents, they’re essentially the same. They’re 99 per cent similar.
Whatever comes out of the federal government as a result of FAAMA will likely be similar to these existing state documents.
So it’s not as if the federal guidance will trump the state guidance. It’s not as if the state guidance will trump the federal guidance. Everything is going to be essentially the same content. [CW agrees that federal guidelines will be reinforcement for a state law.]

Next: The Guidelines, Getting to FAAMA

She thought that was going well. But nothing could have prepared her for what happened when her son started participating in class.

Unbeknownst to Brown, the teacher introduced a system in which she would toss candy to students as a reward for correct answers to questions. Brown then asked her not to give Jacob candy, as it might have corn syrup in it. When the teacher didn’t stop, Brown told Jacob to stop answering questions in class.

That’s when the bullying – from the teacher – started in earnest. “She had a discussion with the entire class. They talked about what corn syrup was, and that it was just a sugar, and how could anyone be allergic to sugar? She was encouraging the kids to not believe.”

Brown’s story is an example of what two new studies are showing: that bullying is an difficult issue for kids growing up with allergies and asthma. A study published in October by researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine showed approximately 35 per cent of kids with food allergies experience some type of bullying, teasing or harassment. What’s more, over 20 per cent reported harassment from teachers or other school staff.

Dr. Scott Sicherer, who led the study, says bullying is a concern of many patients in his clinic. “I have had children crying about it when we talk about it. It is very impactful,” he says.

While the study didn’t ask specifically what type of treatment the kids received from their teachers, Sicherer says this would include comments like, “For John’s birthday party we are having raisins as snacks instead of cake because Jane is allergic.”

Impact of Asthma, Allergy Bullying

Meanwhile, a study reported at the CHEST respiratory conference in Vancouver in November showed one in 10 kids with asthma around the world (the study looked at kids in Canada, Greece, the Netherlands, Britain, Hungary and South Africa) had been bullied or teased because of their asthma.

While bullying was reported at the same rate across the countries, researchers said kids in Canada in particular were more likely to “feel sad and left out, less able to participate in sport and feel different from their peers.”

Brown, who lives in Fort Worth, Texas and is the author of the About.com Toddlers Guide, feels the incident with Jacob’s teacher had a significant impact on her son, now 15. He’d had a special connection with this teacher, as they shared a love of “nerdy” books.

“He would sit there after school and talk to her about books that they both liked. And after all that, he didn’t read for a while. He wouldn’t read for pleasure.”

First published in Allergic Living magazine, Winter 2011.
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