Peanuts on Planes

Admittedly, this is not a media review, but whatever. I just need to comment on this movement to have peanuts banned from airline flights. Apparently there are a number of people who don't fly because they or their children have acute peanut/tree nut allergies? And they're terrified that being on a plane with people eating peanuts will cause a major health crisis or emergency?

A few things come to mind here, so let's just lay them out:

• (A) If you have a severe allergy, don't you have something (an EpiPen or some such) in case something does set you off?
• (B) If you have this allergy, do you avoid any and all places there might be nuts? The grocery store, all restaurants, etc.?
• (C) Only about 1% of the population has this allergy, yet they are collectively asking for preferred treatment--because they classify it as a "disability" and therefore serving nuts in their vicinity counts as some kind of "discrimination." This seems high-handed and rings false, since they surely frequent any number of places where nuts may be or may have been present.
• (D) Even if they succeeded in having nuts banned from planes, how would they keep passengers from carrying on their own trail mix snacks and such?

Now let me be clear. I don't even like nuts much, and I wouldn't be sorry to have them replaced with pretzels or something. But I find this pushiness and overwrought concern annoying, and it makes me disinclined to want to accommodate these people. Show me a list of people who have suffered and/or died from being on an airline flight in which peanuts were present. Because I'm pretty sure there have been people with allergies on those flights. You're not special because you have an allergy. Don't try to give me the one-up line of, "But I'm SO MUCH MORE ALLERGIC than anyone in the history of the world!" Because that's how you sound when you whine about it. And nobody cares but you.

It's the burden of people with allergies like these to take care of themselves. To read labels and avoid nuts. The extent to which you opt to avoid them--including the decision not to fly for fear of peanut dust--is your concern. Not the government's and not population at large's.