Warning labels

[moonshadow]

If you can read the warning... you're already too close!

Somewhere, someone out there got sued because nobody told a consumer that peanut butter contains peanuts!

[Fred in Skirts]

There are idiots every where!! Some people will sue at the drop of the hat and they can do so without being held responsible if their claims are so rediculess that they lose big time. The courts do not hold them responsible for their stupidity. All they do is cost you and I more at the cash register because the companies raise the prices to cover their losses.

Fred

[pelmut]

...If you can read the warning... you're already too close!

On a serious note, this sort of situation could have caused a problem for me:

I am perfume-allergic (multiple chemical sensitivity) and this fact is included in my medical notes. After a minor operation, I was recovering in a hospital bed during a nurses shift change; my medical notes were hung at the foot of my bed, so the incoming nurse stood there while she read them. If she had been using anything perfumed, the warning in the notes would have been useless and the damage would have already been done.

[moonshadow]

I am perfume-allergic (multiple chemical sensitivity) and this fact is included in my medical notes.

Wow that's not good. Perfume gust generally present without any warning at all. In fact, just the other day someone passed me by and I was taken away by the strong perfume she was wearing. Often times it's just too much. This was a big problem back in the days when I went to churches.

I can see that being a difficult allergy to live with. Unlike cigarette smoke which is usually accompanied by more visual warnings, such as the smoke itself, the person lighting up and taking drags, etc. Perfumes are invisible and you never know when you're in a perfume cloud until you're right smack in the middle of one.

Speaking of allergies and rare conditions...
... but even sunlight comes with a warning and a sunlight allergy can be planned around and prepared for.

[crfriend]

Wow that's not good. Perfume gust generally present without any warning at all. In fact, just the other day someone passed me by and I was taken away by the strong perfume she was wearing. Often times it's just too much. This was a big problem back in the days when I went to churches.

Worse is when you wind up on a lift (elevator) with somebody who put the perfume on with a fire-hose that morning. That happened to me fairly frequently in the 1980s when I was still largely working in Boston and visiting multiple sites in one day. I'm not allergic to much, but that's enough to get my eyes to water and me to stop the thing at the first available floor.

[Fred in Skirts]

Worse is when you wind up on a lift (elevator) with somebody who put the perfume on with a fire-hose that morning. That happened to me fairly frequently in the 1980s when I was still largely working in Boston and visiting multiple sites in one day. I'm not allergic to much, but that's enough to get my eyes to water and me to stop the thing at the first available floor.

In my misspent youth I was know as the gas works for obvious reasons, I could at the drop of a hat let loose a cloud that could have been termed a weapon of mass destruction. And elevators were my favorite target. Crowded they offer the greatest amount of targets and usually someone to blame for it. I would do it when a woman with fire-hose perfume would get on. I could have the perfume completely over powered and blame the fay lady for the odor.

Fred

[Tor]

I think the most egregious example of useless warnings I have personally seen is very similar to the OP: A large container of peanuts, which says so in big, bold letters on the front. On the back is "Ingredients: Peanuts". Reasonable so far, but immediately below that, in similarly small text, was "Allergy information: Contains peanuts". I have yet to figure out who benefits from that, aside from lawyers.

[dillon]

Hmm...perfume or flatulence? I'll still take perfume, although disinfectant or ammonia detergent would be no worse.

As for peanut allergies, I cannot recall, as a kid in the 1960s and 70s, ever knowing or hearing of anyone with all the allergies that people seem to have now. Do you think the kids with peanut allergies just died off young? Peanut butter was a ubiquitous staple of the school lunchroom when I was a kid, and my elementary school cafeteria had peanut butter cookies every week. Now kids would be dropping like flies - kids cant bring a peanut butter sandwich for lunch in school today. What has changed in our lives? The contained environments in which we live? If anyone has insight, epidemiological, environmental, whatever, I'd be interested in understanding this phenomenon. I guess I wonder if it doesn't have to do with a child's exposure to basic dirt, which today is rare, but in my childhood, it was what we played in every day. I think kids today, in their enclosed sanitized world, are deprived of building tolerances and immunities.

[moonshadow]

kids cant bring a peanut butter sandwich for lunch in school today.

Perhaps this is different in different areas, but as far as I know, peanut butter isn't banned in any Virginia school I'm aware of. I believe they still serve peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on request to kids. Apparently it's what they're supposed to get when a child runs out of lunch money.

Then again.. a quick google search reveals that some VA schools have played with peanut butter bans... must be a NOVA thing....

It reminds me of when I used to run with a few Pagan friends several years ago... actually the ones that gave me the name "Moon Shadow", but anyway, every time we would get together for a meal, they had a loooooooong list of foods that they couldn't eat. Planning meals with them was extremely difficult. Especially since my diet is pretty typical of your everyday American "Joe". If it's southern... I'll eat it. Finally, after negotiating a single dish one night, after going through for about an hour about all of the foods they couldn't have, I finally just asked "tell you what... why don't you just tell me what CAN you eat??"... Well apparently I was branded a rude, belligerent smart ass for that straight forward question... They blocked me on all social media, stopped coming around, and began screening my calls. It was over... Pagans can be very finicky eaters....

And to this day I've been a solitary practitioner. But I eat whatever I want!

[pelmut]

Hmm...perfume or flatulence? I'll still take perfume, although disinfectant or ammonia detergent would be no worse.

For me perfume would be far worse. In strong concentrations the effect is like having a meat skewer shoved up my nose, at lower concentrations (even down to a level I can't smell) there is slowly increasing confusion, nausea and eventually a feeling that my teeth have gone soft (due to the effect on my sensory nerve endings). I have been known to say "I don't care what you smell of, as long as it's not perfume" - but I have found that adding "I used to work with pigs, you know" is not a good idea.

[moonshadow]

There are certain odors that seem to trigger headaches that linger for days for me. Certain "new car smells" are among them. As well as watching anything "shaky cam". The song "Don't you (forget about me)" by Simple Minds induces a headache too... not really sure why that is because I like the song... just something about it's beat, or rhythm... don't know...

Guess it could all just be psychological, for me anyway...

But for all my weird little allergies, quarks, etc... I'm glad I can handle peanuts. Because I LOVE peanuts!

[Sinned]

Our kids were brought up on peanut butter sandwiches and Pot Noodles. PN's are a favourite of our grandchildren and a staple of my younger son's is still peanut butter sandwiches. Quick and easy to make, full of energy.