Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t criminal assault essentially a failed battery?

Mens rea = D’s knowledge of victim’s allergy and potential fatality of his actions

Actus reus & corpus celecti = all over V’s face.

Yes?

BTW, I’m curious if there’s such a crime as ‘attempted assault;’ since it seems it would be an attempted attempt.

There’s also an interesting theory that says that due to a certain amount of interbreeding between strains of plants (wild and domestic) that didn’t previously have exposure to each other there are some “new” (to the human immune system) allergens entering into the picture.

To preface this, I’m not an expert on this subject but I’m married to someone who’s more or less in the know (she’s currently working in the research part of one of leading Asthma hospitals in the world). So most of this comes from conversations I’ve had with her, but I’m being pretty careful to double check things. Also my explanations are pretty simplified and leave out most of the details about the mechanisms involved. I can post links to a few articles later if anyone is interested.

First off, only around 1-2% of people have peanut allergies, which is not huge. I think part of the seeming increase is just better media coverage combined with a greater chance of people actually being exposed to peanuts.

Research has been done showing that Roasting peanuts can affect how the human body processes certain peanut allergens. Since this method is more common in North America than in other peanut eating parts of the world (China, India, etc.) this might help to explain the higher occurrence of allergies here.

Allergies are basically just your immune system attacking something that’s not an invading germ, that’s why they often have similar symptoms to common ailments (runny nose, sneezing, rash, etc.). In the case of peanuts the reaction can be pretty severe. In a number of common food allergies like milk and eggs, children will actually outgrow them as their immune system settles down. In fact 25% of all peanut allergy sufferers may out grow theirs.

My understanding is that one of the more strongly supported current explanations for the rise in allergies in general is called the “hygiene” theory. Since the modern child is exposed to way less dirt\germs\pollen in general their immune system doesn’t really know how to sort out the germs from the rest, so is more likely to attack the wrong thing.

Also conventional wisdom holds that there is a smaller occurrence of allergies in people who were breastfed. Breast milk contains the mother’s antibodies which help the child’s immune system to “learn” what it can safely ignore. Some more recent studies seem to refute that though.

To preface this, I’m not an expert on this subject but I’m married to someone who’s more or less in the know (she’s currently working in the research part of one of leading Asthma hospitals in the world). So most of this comes from conversations I’ve had with her, but I’m being pretty careful to double check things. Also my explanations are pretty simplified and leave out most of the details about the mechanisms involved.

Allergies are basically just your immune system attacking something that’s not an invading germ, that’s why they often have similar symptoms to common ailments (runny nose, sneezing, rash, etc.). In the case of peanuts the reaction can be pretty severe. In a number of common food allergies like milk and eggs, children will actually outgrow them as their immune system settles down. In fact 25% of all peanut allergy sufferers may out grow theirs. Here’s a good general guide to peanut allergies: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/peanut-allergy/DS00710

My understanding is that one of the more strongly supported current explanations for the rise in allergies in general is called the “hygiene” theory. Since the modern child is exposed to way less dirt\germs\pollen in general their immune system doesn’t really know how to sort out the germs from the rest, so is more likely to attack the wrong thing. Here’s a pretty basic explanation of the hygiene theory: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn9357

Also conventional wisdom holds that there is a smaller occurrence of allergies in people who were breastfed. Breast milk contains the mother’s antibodies which help the child’s immune system to “learn” what it can safely ignore. Some more recent studies seem to refute that though.

Joshua Hickson, 19, appears by any measure to be an idiot.

When he found out that a student at Wenatchee High School was severely allergic to peanuts, he repeatedly smeared a peanut butter sandwich on the student’s forehead

Well, the attempted peanut butter poisoning aside, I’d have to concure with Professor Turley, that Mr Hickson is “by any measure”, an idiot.

Specifically given the fact that Mr Hickson is 19 and still attending High School.

He knew of the allergy and his intent was to harm. He is of an age where he could understand the potential consequences of his actions.

The assault charge is appropriate.

And I too, as a life long allergy sufferer, noticed that I have a lot more company than I used to when I was a kid. My personal theory is that the increasing toxicity of our environment creates feedback loops within the food chain. These loops manifest in many ways. With some humans it’s allergies. With frogs and other amphibians it can be life threatening physiological mutations. With some animals, it’s a behavioral side effect.

This theory can also be used to explain why anyone would vote GOP at this point in history – lead poisoning. While that is a semi-joke, the rest of it is not. We as a species are killing ourselves by degrees. We are driving our own extinction (greatly aided by Washington and uncontrolled corporations). I think increased histaminic reactions are an “echo” of how we are dying. Slow poisoning will get us before global warming. The possible supervening event being nuclear war, of course, or more fascists in the White House.