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60k kids have avoided peanut allergies due to 2015 advice, study finds

(www.cbsnews.com)
349 points zdw | 12 comments | 21 Oct 25 03:53 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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forgotoldacc ◴[21 Oct 25 05:20 UTC] No.45652698[source]▶
There was a period of a few decades (I guess still ongoing, really) where parents sheltered their kids from everything. Playing in the dirt, peanuts, other allergens. It seems like all it's done is make people more vulnerable as adults. People assume babies are super fragile and delicate, and in many ways they are, but they also bounce back quickly.

Maybe part of it is a consequence of the risks of honey, which can actually spawn camp infants with botulism. But it seems that fear spread to everything.

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jstummbillig ◴[21 Oct 25 06:08 UTC] No.45652940[source]▶
Not to confuse things: There quite simply is a long list of things that can kill an infant and we get increasingly better evidence for what's on there and what is not. Avoiding death at all cost is ludicrous, but for a child born in the 1950s in high income countries the mortality rate was ~5%. 1 in 20 kids dead before the age of 5. For contrast, now it's closer to 1 in 300. That's not a coincidence but a lot of compounding things we understand better today.

Are there missteps? Certainly. Figuring out what is effective, what has bad secondary effects (fragility, allergies etc) and what is simply wrong is an ongoing effort and that's great, but less dying is a pretty nice baseline and progress on that front is inarguable.

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1. repeekad ◴[21 Oct 25 06:52 UTC] No.45653159[source]▶
It’s not just save as many lives as possible at all costs, saving 20 kids but 2 will develop debilitating peanut allergies isn’t worth it. Progress must be done slowly ensuring no harm is done along the way.

Science failed here.

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2. jbstack ◴[21 Oct 25 07:05 UTC] No.45653221[source]▶
What on earth are you saying? It's better to kill 20 children than to risk that 2 of them develop peanut allergies? I don't see how this can even begin to be an arguable position to take. And that's ignoring the fact that it isn't even a correct assertion in this case.
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3. pbhjpbhj ◴[21 Oct 25 07:20 UTC] No.45653313[source]▶
So you avoid things like electricity and the internet, because they've caused children's deaths too?
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4. repeekad ◴[21 Oct 25 08:03 UTC] No.45653547[source]▶
They’re not mutually exclusive options, we can save the 20 kids safely while having a mindset that values doing no harm.

Telling anxious parents to have their kids avoid peanuts caused harm that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. I guess it’s valuable to better understand allergies, but learning at others’ expense isn’t worth it.

5. repeekad ◴[21 Oct 25 08:04 UTC] No.45653557[source]▶
I’d prefer to live in a world where the same technology developed in such a way that they didn’t have to die, yes.
6. lurk2 ◴[21 Oct 25 08:59 UTC] No.45653846[source]▶
> It’s not just save as many lives as possible at all costs, saving 20 kids but 2 will develop debilitating peanut allergies isn’t worth it.

Your math isn’t checking out here.

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7. repeekad ◴[21 Oct 25 09:08 UTC] No.45653883[source]▶
I clearly misspoke and people are misunderstanding my point, which is only that “hurting people is worth it” is a horrible argument and shouldn’t be a valuable thing, we can and should save the 20 kids without causing harm to the 2

doing nothing is better than something if that something might hurt people without understanding how and why

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8. monkey_monkey ◴[21 Oct 25 09:10 UTC] No.45653900{3}[source]▶
People are misunderstanding your point because you are doing a terrible job of explaining it.
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9. repeekad ◴[21 Oct 25 09:24 UTC] No.45653967{4}[source]▶
What specifically do you disagree with? I’ve explained it three different times now and can’t delete my original comment so please let me know

This research shows physicians harmed kids recommending they avoid allergens like peanuts, is that something we should ignore because all the benefits of science are “worth it”?

Science is amazing not because it’s always right, but because it (should) strive to always do better next time

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10. monkey_monkey ◴[21 Oct 25 09:31 UTC] No.45653997{5}[source]▶
All you're fucking doing is saying "Don't save a million people of 1 person is going to be harmed" OR the utterly trite point of "wouldn't it be great if everything was magical and no one was harmed by anything ever".
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11. repeekad ◴[21 Oct 25 09:48 UTC] No.45654074{6}[source]▶
What you’re describing is called utilitarian ethics, the exact tradeoff is called the trolly problem. Ethics is much more complicated than a single comment thread

“it’s worth it” is a horrible argument when people’s health is on the line.

12. array_key_first ◴[21 Oct 25 18:06 UTC] No.45659320[source]▶
Yeah, we should just round up all those peasants with peanut allergies and shoot them!