I.P. asked:

I have been searching and searching to try to determine how long nut/peanut residues last on surfaces.  I cannot seem to find an answer to this question.  My son suffers from peanut and nut allergies and I was wondering how long an allergen stays on door knobs or other surfaces before they “die” or does it just sit there until someone cleans it up.

My reply was this:

You will be glad to hear that it is actually quite easy to get rid of peanut and nut residue.

This article outlines a study from a few years ago on how most cleansers will remove it from surfaces. Take note that dish soap does not work very well. You need to use a cleanser like Fantastic or Lysol wipes.

http://www.webmd.com/allergies/news/20040510/peanut-allergy-cleaners

Also it is important to realize that nut proteins are not living things and they do not die. They will last (practically) forever on a surface if left alone.

image by Adam E. Moreira

Well with school starting again, I am sure we all have our stories. Even before it started we had a few incidents that make you want to make sure that your child knows what to do.

Playgrounds.

My son was playing outside with his daycare-mates when a school-age boy came around to offer the kids a straw of candy. One of those sugar-filled straws. I believe they are called Pixie Stick. When my son said he could not have that, because he was allergic, the boy insisted it was safe causing my wife to intervene and tell the boy that because we didn’t know what was in it, he could not have it. Even then the boy insisted and now got my son telling my wife “he says it’s safe, mom!”.

Instances like this require us, as parents, to stress how important, no matter how sure you may be, it is to refuse food if you don’t know the ingredients and to not allow a child to challenge your views on the subject. That other child also should be educated but that isn’t always possible.

Field Trips and Washing Up.

A bus full of 50+ kids and a public indoor fun park. Allergy haven I think. The kids enjoyed themselves and there were no instances of any kind. Good trip all-in-all.

After playing in the fun park and before having a picnic lunch one of the teachers started distributing dollops of hand sanitizer gel to each of the kids. While she did this she was telling the kids it was to clean their hands and to make sure there were no allergens left on their hands. My wife heard this and was appalled that the teacher was telling this to the kids.

After the trip, my wife called the school to inform them that a teacher had been doing this and that they should all know that the gel does not remove allergens and that to properly remove allergens you need to give your hands a good washing under running water or use an anti-septic cloth where the allergens are removed to the cloth. The problem with the gel is that all it does is move the allergens around. Unlike a germ, that can be killed by the gel, a nut protein can not.