current state of the UK

[qapmoc]

Is it me or is does the UK seem to be getting to the stage where anything which might ''offend'' somebody is going to be banned or changed :-(

ban fireworks...ban Xmas lights...No BC dates...Ban loud music...stop smoking...ban fox hunting etc... etc... etc... ad infinitum.

I suppose part of the problem is that people in the UK (and other developed countries) seem to be out of touch with the real world where by numbers alone most of the other people exist, things such as poverty, hunger, no jobs, lack of resources, wars etc.. keep people busy surviving, but the developed world obviously has very few of those things happening and so it seems that many people in th UK have nothing to do except sit around thinking of things which might annoy them and then they make an effort to stop other people doing it.

[january_bug]

Indeed! Mind you - there's also a lot of poor information. I thought "wheat intolerant" was a total joke until I met a girl with it who said that if undiscovered, a wheat intolerance can be life threatening! I believe her now! :-)

[woofgang]

Actually it does seem that there are more true allergies than there used to be. There are two (at least) views on why this might be. One view says that children are sensitised to things like nuts by being fed them too early. The other says that our systems are less challenged by itrritants due to the cleaner way in which we all live so they are less adaptable and more sensitive....take your pick. One thing that I do know is that fireworks used to be smaller and less noisy. The change came about when import regs were relaxed allowing imports from China. This reduced the price and enabled private citizensd to purchase the kind of thing that was previously only available to the organisers of displays.

[mimififi]

re allergies now aswell, say 50-60 years ago, if a child had an anaphalactic reaction to a nut (which weren't typically in your everyday diet post war time), he or she would have died, and perhaps parents would never have really known why/what of.

These days, alot of the rise in allergies is due to raised awareness. Children years ago would be labelled "failure to thrive" or "sickly", now it is found out what is making them so and the problem is cured.

I don't disagree with you though, the things we do to our food re chemicals and over farming, and poor animal feeds etc etc, probably don't help. All allergies are are an immunity disorder, so years ago when people were generally healthier, ate less additives, ate square meals, did more excercise, didn't live in heated homes etc etc, I suspect people were in some ways healthier generally. These days we are more sensitive.

However, you can't be allergic to something you have never had, you have to have something once in order for your immune system to reject it the next time. Therefore avoiding peanuts till you are 2 is not going to necessarily reduce your chances of reacting anaphalactically to them. It will just delay it. The merit in delaying it is that a 2 year old perhaps has a better chance than a 10 month old of recovering

I don't' think the grass is greener either, as I also remember that in the olden days, instead of allergy they had, diptheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, mumps, scarlet fever, T.B, all of which still exist, but in lesser degrees....I like the age I live in now.

[woofgang]

well apparently it might. One theory is that certain foods, if given to very young children, can predispose them to sensitivity when they are older.