JAPAN SCHOOLS TO MAKE ALLERY MANUALS AFTER DEATH OF CHILD

I of course HATE hearing about stories like this. It's always a little to close to home reading about a family that lost a child as a result of a serious food allergy.

This story talks about the implementation of manuals to address serious food allergies. The proposal is a direct result from the death of a fifth-grade girl who died from eating something she was allergic to during school lunch in Chofu, Tokyo.

THAT scares me! Of course I understand the complexity of serious food allergies, common every day foods (Like Wheat, Dairy, Eggs) are not obvious dangers to people unaffected by food allergies.
It would be so damn easy to overlook. It's tedious and confusing trying to avoid 'allergic too' foods.
Of course second nature to us directly effected, but remember how hard it was at first trying to get around it?

In 2008, the education ministry supervised the publication of guidelines for handling food allergies at school. The guidelines illustrated measures to avoid mixing allergy-inducing ingredients with school lunch served for children with allergies and to prevent such children from mistakenly eating prohibited foods. These measures include the use of separate refrigerators and cooking utensils.
The guidelines also suggested that all teachers and school staff have accurate information on what allergies children have and closely consult with one another over how to handle epinephrine injections.
Motohiro Ebisawa, a doctor specialised in allergic diseases at Sagamihara National Hospital, who was involved in the compilation of the guidelines, said, "Many [officials of] schools say they have never read the guidelines or they don't know where the guidelines are--this is the reality."
"There are huge gaps by region or by school over how to handle allergy problems [at school]. The failure to fully apply the guidelines was a factor behind the fatal accident in Chofu," Ebisawa said.

FULL STORY HERE 

This school already had Food Allergy Guidelines in place. But no one was any wiser, many admit to not even ever having read the guidelines.
Do parents assume that the staff at schools are competent to handle food allergies? Is it our responsibility to educate? How can a school who has a child enrolled with a serious food allergy not be taking steps to ensure all staff are up-to-date with the Food Allergy Guidelines? If this BASIC duty of care action wasn't addressed how can the proposed manuals for food allergies make any difference?

We need to see a change in the stigma of Serious Food Allergies, were not dealing with inconvenient selfish requests by over protecting parents.
The people entrusted with our children need to understand the effects of serious food allergies and how to handle a situation should one arise.

Do you think your child's school and its staff are Allergy Aware?