Peanuts! As I noted, our daughter developed a tree nut and peanut allergy. We discovered this when she was about 2 1/2 and had a cookie served by someone else.
1440 had a helpful summary. According to a study published in Pediatrics, “new food allergies in the US have dropped 36% in 10 years. The drop follows a 2015 landmark trial on peanuts and shifting national guidance on early introduction to food allergens.” Ah, if it had only been available a decade or sooner.
Wow. “About 60,000 children have avoided developing peanut allergies after guidance first issued in 2015 upended medical practice by recommending introducing the allergen to infants starting as early as 4 months.” I’ve seen stories on the evening news, but without sufficient detail. This is REALLY interesting to me.
My wife, daughter, and I have asked restaurant servers about their processes. Some places provide more diligence than others; you can immediately sense it.
“Researchers analyzed electronic health records for roughly 125,000 children from 48 pediatric practices across the US. They looked at cohorts of children ages 0-3 before and after a 2015 trial found that feeding peanut products to babies cut their allergy risk by over 80%.” This is great news.
“Guidance was updated to encourage early introduction of peanuts to high-risk children; today, parents are encouraged to introduce peanuts and eight other common allergens to children, regardless of risk level.” High risk includes kids with severe eczema.
“By 2020, an estimated 57,000 fewer children developed food allergies alongside the evolving recommendations. Read the complete study here.”
I can’t help but wonder how that would have worked out if we knew then what we know now.
Treatment
There is also a Peanut Allergy Treatment. “In recent years, peanut immunotherapy has emerged as a treatment option. It is for adults and most children.
“Peanut allergy immunotherapy is a treatment that focuses on building tolerance to peanuts. It desensitizes the body to the allergen.
“The treatment starts with a tiny amount of peanut protein, then gradually increases to larger amounts until a target dose is reached. Building up peanut exposure desensitizes the patient to higher doses of peanut protein.
“Peanut allergy immunotherapy is a treatment, not a cure. It is designed to reduce the frequency and severity of allergic reactions. This includes life-threatening anaphylaxis.”
We haven’t talked about this. However, she had a couple of scares in South Africa, where the labeling was not as robust as in the United States. If she wanted to start treatment, I would hope it would be while she’s still on my insurance for the next few years.
The daughter wanted a driver’s license in the summer of 2024. She studied the driver’s manual thoroughly and got her driver’s permit. Then she took the mandated five-hour course on August 18th (the date becomes relevant), but there just wasn’t enough time for her to get enough reps to drive, much to her disappointment.
Here’s a week in the life for July 2025. Some were referred to before the fact 
The day before the daughter took the plane ride home, I asked her, on WhatsApp, if she had her ticket and passport. She wrote back, “I hope so.” Of course, she did, but it wasn’t the answer I had been seeking. She arrived at the airport in Cape Town about four hours before her scheduled flight on June 17, as recommended, which was beneficial because loading began over an hour before takeoff.
Among the most terrible things I had to do regarding my daughter was telling her about Christy Harris D’Ambrosio, who died on Tuesday, April 8. Christy was the youth director at our church when my daughter was active growing up in the church. She directed several plays that my daughter participated in, including The Prince of Egypt, Once on This Island, The Lion King, an iteration of Assassins called Shooters, Bethlehemian Rhapsody, a performance using Beatles music, and even a piece that required the kids to write their own content. Christy was also a long-time member of our choir.