An Open Letter to WisCon Re: Disability Access and Peanut Allergies
Dear WisCon Coordinators,
I am writing this letter with a degree of desperation to request accomodations for the peanut-allergic at WisCon.
Aproximately 1% of people are allergic to peanuts. At WisCon, that translates to around ten attendees - a significant number in terms of disability access. While not all of those allergies may be as severe as mine, odds are good that at least several will be.
In past years, WisCon has refused to accomodate any food allergies, suggesting instead that those of us with life-threatening allergies simply avoid potentially dangerous foods. Your argument has been that it would be too difficult to accomodate everyone's specific needs. Yet you go out of your way to accomodate persons with a wide range of other disabilities, many of which are less common than life-threatening nut allergies.
And for many of us, simply avoiding foods is neither as simple nor as safe, and it restricts and alienates us from many of the con activities. I cannot attend the bake sale. I cannot attend the dessert salon, nor hear the keynote speeches, nor enter the con suite. Furthermore, I have to avoid the areas surrounding all of those - and I am still gambling that no one will choose to carry their food into the halls or another area, because particulate air-based exposure is enough to kill me.
You have asked that people avoid using scented products at WisCon out of respect to attendees with inhalant allergies and asthma. I am begging you to do the same with peanut products - and to ban them entirely from the con suite, dessert salon, and bake sale.* This isn't a matter of convenience: it's very literally an issue of life and death.
I'm focusing on peanut allergies rather than other food allergies for three reason. The first is obvious: they affect me personally. The second is that they are among the most common food allergies; the odds that other attendees at WisCon will be in similar straits are extremely high. The third and most important is that they are, by a huge margin, the food allergies most likely to be deadly. Aproximately 125 people die from food allergies every year in the United States, and of those deaths, the overwhelming majority are caused by peanuts.
*There are also a lot of good and safe alternatives to convenience foods like peanut butter, which I would be happy to advise you on and help you procure if necessary.
Thank You,
Rachel Edidin