I am very disappointed with KWFA. They had a webinar in June on Flying With Food Allergies. The physician who spoke is a member of the Peanut Board (or whatever it is called). He disclosed this at the beginning. Then, of course, he proceeded to say there is no risk on a plane of a serious reaction if people are eating peanuts around a pa person. Now I don`t believe anything KWFA says. I feel like they have really reduced their credibility by having someone on the Peanut Board as one of their speakers.
Everybody is entitled to their own opinions ... truly, I mean that ... and concerns of potential conflicts of interest are understandable. I'm not going to turn into the "opinion police".
I will say that I see food industry influence (or the potential to influence) all over the FA world ... whether it's FARRP at FARE & FAACT, corporate sponsors for conferences, industry $ funding research,
etc. Quite frankly, my opinion is that FARRP should NOT be in a leadership position in any FA org ... FA orgs that claim to represent the FA community should be OUR representatives .... talking/communicating with FARRP and/or industry is fine & necessary ... but it would be best if these cozy relationships were severed.
Even in that KFA flying webinar, Laurel Francoeur pointed out how food industry congressional lobbying negatively impacted the rights that FA families have when flying. That was really interesting to me & was something that I had not known.
I don't see any group, including FAS, as ALL good or ALL bad ... but that is just my opinion. One great thing about us is that we are independent of industry.
Personally, I think that KFA has some excellent resources ... I may not agree with everything ... but I do trust and have benefited from many of their resources.
My dd does not currently have low thresholds to any food and industry approach to FA issues would probably work fine for families like mine ... at the same time, I fully trust that CM's dd is as sensitive as described ... when docs or orgs try telling me that those people don't exist or that their reactions are impossible ... a big red flag goes up in my mind.
Research on thresholds, school policy, etc. should be of the best quality ... transparency, integrity, honesty, best study design, a full disclosure of the study's limitations, etc.
I'm rambling again. This is becoming a habit. Must.Stop.