Quote:
Originally Posted by justsomeguy
As a believer in the hygiene hypothesis, I would argue the opposite. Not enough exposure to normal particles in the environment especially as a child results in T cell and B cell progenitors not being negatively selected during development. Hence, the result is lymphocytes reacting to common substances.
Regarding the article: There's nothing wrong with teaching kids hygiene at an early age (I work at a medical school, yet certain people with MDs and/or PhDs still don't wash after using the toilet!) or teaching them about allergies (to avoid "allergy bullying" in the future), and the right to live is greater than the right to eat peanuts, but the steps being taken go way overboard. Requiring the mouth to be rinsed definitely goes too far, since that can be considered an intimate/internal part of the body.
The child with allergies will be unable to survive in any uncontrolled environment, such as any city street with sidewalk food vendors, parks, zoos, airplanes, movie theaters, etc. If the article is not exaggerating and her allergy is truly that severe, I can only strongly suggest desensitization therapy before letting her go anywhere.
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Actually I wasn't even talking about that subject (which I agree, an overly sterile environment for babies and toddlers retards the immune system maturation). I was talking about *overload* .... irritants, chemicals, materials we haven't evolved to cope with present in abundant quantities -- the immune system starts flailing with false positives.