Nutty or smart? Possible in-flight peanut ban or restrictions concern many

Peanuts may get dumped from airlines' snack trays.

The federal Department of Transportation is soliciting feedback on whether to ban or restrict the popular snacks in-flight.

Advocates favor a crackdown because of the danger to people like 5-year-old Chaynee Horn.

Chaynee was just a tot when one evening around Christmas time her face suddenly swelled up and she began struggling for breath. Chaynee's father, Dallas Horn, realized she was allergic to the gooey peanut butter cookies they'd been eating and quickly pressed an antihistamine into her mouth.

"It was a big time scare to us,” he said.

Emergency room staffers said Horn reacted correctly and within an hour Chaynee was sleeping peacefully on her mother's shoulder.

"Personally, I would sure hate to see peanuts banned in any way,” Horn said. "I'm a farmer myself. I would hate to put a ban on a food product that would put a black eye on that product.”

He said it would be difficult and impractical to ban peanuts, dairy goods or other food products.

Horn said awareness is the best response to nut allergies like those suffered by Chaynee and 3.3 million others.

He said the family carries an epinephrine pen for emergency injections and lets friends, school administrators and church members in their southwest Oklahoma community of Carnegie know about Chaynee's allergy.

One church member, Loyd Lasley, raises some of the state's 4 million pounds of peanuts. He questioned the ban idea.

"I think it will hurt some of the sales of peanuts,” he said.

The roots of Lasley's family peanut farm started in 1936 when his grandfather raised their first crop of peanuts at Eakly in southwest Oklahoma. He said switching to another crop would be costly.

Jenny Kales, an advocate and mom of a girl with a peanut allergy, said some people have to be scared of peanuts in planes.

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