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> I just wish that my friend who took her “emotional support animal” on the airplane believed that she was, on average, making several people on each flight sic

> I just wish that my friend who took her “emotional support animal” on the airplane believed that she was, on average, making several people on each flight sick as a trade off. Citation needed here. Don't get me wrong - I'm severely allergic to cats and I've had my share of issues when encountering them while traveling, but my gut tells me "several people on each flight" is a bit of an exaggeration. Happy to be proven wrong. This is a really tough thing. On the one hand, as someone who has suffered from allergies since I was a kid, it'd be great if I encountered the things I'm most allergic to less often. However, it's also not fair or reasonable to think that the rest of society needs to do something about my personal health issues. I also grew up with a shellfish allergy and carried an epipen for most of my life. But the responsibility has always been on me (and my parents earlier on) to make sure I take steps to not get sick. Pain in the ass: yes.

elipsey 9y ago
Not asking for a ban on anything, just want people to be aware of the issue. Sorry, can't find a proper scholarly source right now, but in the past I have seen estimates that conservatively place the occurance rate of pet allergy at around 5-10%. If an airplane seats 200, that's probably "several"; maybe only a few of them will have allergies bad enough to matter. Since dander persists in the environment, at least a few people are going to be allergic to that envirnoment if this happens a lot. I have to go to work and school, so I can't always avoid this kind of thing. My friend didn't claim to have a medical diagnosis, she just didn't like to be without her dog. By analogy, it might be like if people went around rubbing clams on the furniture at your office. Like at least it would be nice if they only did it with a good reason.

elipsey 9y ago

Not asking for a ban on anything, just want people to be aware of the issue. Sorry, can't find a proper scholarly source right now, but in the past I have seen estimates that conservatively place the occurance rate of pet allergy at around 5-10%. If an airplane seats 200, that's probably "several"; maybe only a few of them will have allergies bad enough to matter. Since dander persists in the environment, at least a few people are going to be allergic to that envirnoment if this happens a lot. I have to go to work and school, so I can't always avoid this kind of thing. My friend didn't claim to have a medical diagnosis, she just didn't like to be without her dog. By analogy, it might be like if people went around rubbing clams on the furniture at your office. Like at least it would be nice if they only did it with a good reason.