Time Magazine has an interesting article about Harvard’s Harvard professor Dr. Nicholas Christakis who argues that concern over nut allergies is often far disproportionate to the risk. Christakis wrote an article for the British Medical Journal arguing that reaction to nut allergies is more like a mass hysteria than a reasoned response to a real threat.

As Time puts it in its profile,

No one would disagree that children who suffer from life-threatening allergies need to be protected, but the growing trend of demonizing nuts only fuels anxiety, Christakis says. Instilling in the general public the idea that nuts are a “clear and present danger” does little beyond heightening panic. “There are kids with severe allergies, and they need to be taken seriously,” he says, “but the problem with a disproportionate response is that it feeds the epidemic.”

The British Medical Journal ran a similar piece in 2006 arguing that the risks of food allergies in children was greatly exagerrated,

The public seems to have an exaggerated perception of the risks of food allergy, probably spurred on by the media. Recent headlines in national newspapers in the United Kingdom include: “One bite and he dies,” “School unable to supervise boy with killer allergy,” and “Worry over nut allergy knocks out school conkers.” Food allergy is often thought to be more dangerous and frightening than, say, pneumonia, asthma, or diabetes, probably because of the rapid onset of symptoms and the notion that severe reactions and deaths from food allergy can be prevented. In reality, the number of deaths is small, and only some are preventable.