NEWTON- Two men were injured in an accident just after 7 p.m. on Saturday in Harvey County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2000 Ford Explorer driven by Jorge. Espinoza-Avila, 24, Dallas, TX., was southbound on Interstate 135 at Newton. The vehicle left the roadway to the left. The driver overcorrected to the right, lost control, and the vehicle overturned several times.

Espinoza-Avila and a passenger in the vehicle Jose Sanchez-Waldo, 22, Dallas, TX., were transported to Wesley Medical Center. The KHP reported they were not wearing seat belts.

By Alex Smith, KUCR

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After announcing this season’s schedule of peanut allergy-friendly events, the Kansas City Royals saw several sell out, and the team soon added another to keep up with demand.

The announcement came after a campaign from some local fans, and it followed a growing trend of baseball teams working to be more accommodating to fans with allergies.

Despite what some call an allergy epidemic, the medical community is still trying to grasp why peanut allergies seem to be increasing among kids. Meanwhile, some fans scoff at the idea of separating the national pastime from its signature snack.
Ten-year-old Weston Miller, a fourth-grader who plays catcher for his Little League team in Knob Knoster, Mo., said baseball is his favorite sport. But attending Royals games – or any major sporting event – has been difficult for him and his parents, Janna and Eric Miller.

“I am allergic to peanuts and tree nuts, and that’s very severe, and I could die from that,” Weston said.

In early spring of this year, Janna Miller decided she wanted to take her son’s favorite sport beyond the Little League field.

She started a Facebook group, Kansas City Royals Fans for Peanut Free Baseball Games, to encourage the Royals to create allergy-friendly events. That meant setting aside a private seating area that would be free of peanuts and food containing them.

Miller said she’s still willing to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch.

“We’ll still sing the song, but it doesn’t mean that we’re going to be eating peanuts,” she said.

Grassroots movement

Miller’s local campaign is part of a national grassroots movement comprised mostly of parents like her and a blogger who identifies herself only as Jennifer B, a Boston mother whose son is allergic to peanuts.

On her website, www.peanutfreebaseball.com, Jennifer B dispenses information on food allergy-friendly sports events and rallies supporters to contact local teams.

When she started the peanut-free effort in 2008, few teams offered the events. She says a lot of teams she initially contacted were sympathetic but stopped short of making accommodations. All of them offered the same reason: liability.

She says team after team expressed concern about the possibility of accidental allergic reactions leading to lawsuits.

“They say, ‘We can’t assure them that there’s not going to be some stray peanut shell that’s going to come near them,” Jennifer B said.

Since starting her work, however, many major league teams – including the Yankees, Mets and White Sox – and minor league teams have made allergy accommodations, getting around the liability issue by requiring a waiver.

Jennifer B’s home team – the Red Sox – has offered allergy-friendly events for several years, but she admits she hasn’t actually been to one.

“To be honest with you, my son has turned out not to be that big a baseball fan as the rest of the family,” Jennifer B said.

The million-dollar question

A lot of her work involves answering questions from both parents and baseball teams about severe peanut allergies. And there are plenty of them, including the big one: Why are increasing numbers of people allergic to peanuts?

“Yeah, that’s the million-dollar question,” said Dr. Chitra Dinakar, a pediatric allergist at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.

No one knows for sure what causes peanut allergies, but one theory points to the age that children are exposed to peanuts and another theory points to exposure to soy products.

One of the most popular theories is the hygiene hypothesis.

“When the environment is too clean, as in Western countries, then the immune system starts barking at shadows and considers things that are not scary to be scary,” Dinakar says.

Supporters of this theory point to the Amish, who raise their children among hay, dirt and animals. They also drink raw milk and have some of the lowest rates of allergies in the Western world.

Dinakar explains that the immune systems of allergic people react to peanuts as something harmful. When exposed to them, their bodies flood with histamine.

“It makes you itch and sneeze and throw up,” Dinakar said. “You sometimes have diarrhea, but it can go on to more severe reactions like wheezing, bronchial constriction. You can’t breathe. You start coughing, and then your blood pressure drops and you pass out and, God forbid, it can result in death.”

Even among allergists, estimates of the number of children affected range widely. Some say as many as one in 12 children are allergic to peanuts, with 40 percent of those allergies being severe.

Skepticism persists

Allergists agree that the prevalence of peanut allergies is increasing, but it still afflicts a small percentage of the population. Jennifer B says she’s heard from many in the peanut gallery who wonder why baseball teams should make special accommodations for such a small group.

A 2012 commentary by Fraser Steitel on a Fox News talk show with Shepard Smith was one notable example. He called the introduction of allergy-friendly events “heretical.”

Dinakar said she has seen many patients and parents overreact to an allergy diagnosis, and she understands the skepticism many harbor about peanut allergies.

But she thinks making accommodations, especially for children, is important to help ease the paralyzing fear that often accompanies peanut allergies.

“You’re supposed to be able to eat food, right?” Dinakar said. “To think that a normal food that everybody else eats and enjoys is a threat to your life, I think that’s the part that is sort of a quagmire.”

Not long after Janna Miller launched her campaign, the Royals announced they would offer allergy-friendly events this season.

Anthony Mozzicato, the Royals’ director of guest experience, said the team had previously offered allergy-friendly events but discontinued them due to lack of interest.

This season is different. The team has been inundated with requests for the events.

“We want to be able to help those individuals, whether it’s a child or an adult, have an opportunity to watch baseball games,” Mozzicato said.

According to Jennifer B, all but eight major league teams – the Angels, Astros, Athletics, Cubs, Dodgers, Marlins, Rangers and Rays – now offer allergy-friendly events.

At the first allergy-friendly Royals event of the season, five families turned out to watch the home team play the Astros from inside a sanitized and air-conditioned suite.

A registered nurse from the University of Kansas Hospital stood by with Benadryl and EpiPens, which are used to counteract severe reactions.

Many of the younger fans’ attention faded after a few innings, but that wasn’t the case for 15-year-old Antonio Franco, who was awed. It was his first time at a baseball stadium.

“I just never really expected anything like this,” he said. “I just never though that a club or team would do this, which I found really nice.”

SALINA-A Kansas teen died in an accident just before 2 p.m. on Saturday in Ottawa County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2005 Chevy HHR driven by Page Tope, 17, Salina, was northbound on U.S. 81 two miles southeast of Minneapolis in the right hand lane.  For unknown reasons the vehicle swerved onto the right shoulder. The driver over corrected and the vehicle rolled through median.

Tope and a passenger in the vehicle Reed William Ash, 18, Salina, were transported to Salina Regional Hospital. Ash was pronounced dead just after 3 p.m

The KHP reported Ash was not wearing a seat belt.

SALINA- Area Law enforcement officials have reported a telephone scam that is operating in parts of Kansas.

According to a press release from the Saline County Sheriff, a caller from the 202 area code claims to be from the Internal Revenue Service and states they are calling in reference to taxes owed.

The caller directs the person to a local vendor to wire money. The caller advises that if the money is not wired immediately, the local sheriff will be dispatched to arrest them.

The Sheriff’s Office does not recommend anyone to transmit any funds to anyone they do not know and to contact local law enforcement if it is suspected someone is trying to solicit funds fraudulently.

NEW YORK (AP) — Nissan is recalling more than 226,000 additional vehicles over a defective air bag that has affected much of the global auto industry.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Saturday that Nissan North America Inc. is recalling certain lines of its Infiniti, Maxima, Pathfinder and Sentra cars for the model years 2002 to 2004.

It had previously announced a recall of more than 438,000 vehicles.

The move is prompted by faulty air bags that have been blamed for the recall of millions of cars in recent years, including those made by BMW, Chrysler, Ford, Honda, Mazda and Toyota.

The air bags systems were made by Tokyo-based Takata Corp. The air bag inflators can rupture, causing metal fragments to fly out when the air bags are deployed. That can potentially cause serious injuries.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Wichita police are investigating the death of a man who was hit by a train.

The Wichita Eagle reports police believe the man, whose name was not released, committed suicide by stepping in front of the oncoming train Saturday morning.

Police say as the train was heading north, the man walked toward the tracks and appeared to intentionally step in front of the train. Police say the train was going about 30 mph with 114 cars and couldn’t stop in time.

Police are trying to contact relatives of the man, who they believe was homeless.

 

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — Comcast has canceled a promotional event at the home of a Kansas state senator.

The cable company announced the open house in a recent news release that paired Republican Sen. Julia Lynn of Olathe and promotional language about its home security service.

After queries from The Kansas City Star about an elected official endorsing a commercial service, Comcast moved the event to another home. Comcast spokeswoman Mary Beth Schubert says Comcast didn’t provide Lynn with any free products, equipment or services.

Earlier this year, a Senate committee that Lynn chairs introduced a bill to keep cities from starting their own TV or broadband services. The measure died in the committee.

Lynn says she thought the Comcast demonstration would give her a better understanding of how security technology works.

COLUMBUS, Kan. (AP) — Cherokee County officials say an audit of the county treasurer’s office shows that more than $23,000 is missing from county bank accounts.

County Commissioner Richard Hilderbrand said Friday that the special audit of funds from 2011 shows a difference of more than $18,000 between what the bank account shows and what the treasurer’s office shows. In 2012, the difference climbs to more than $23,000.

Juanita Hodgson, who has been treasurer for 12 years, says while she doesn’t know the exact cause of the discrepancy, she believes the problem could be human error.

The Joplin Globe reports that Hilderbrand says an auditor is expected to give the board a formal letter the first week of August that will show the findings in detail.

 

LIBERAL- A Kansas woman died from injuries in a head on crash at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday in Seward County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2005 Chevy Tahoe driven by Stacy Dawn Curry, 39, Liberal was southbound on U.S. 83 sixteen miles north of Liberal.

The Chevy crossed the centerline and struck a 2004 Mercedes Benz head on.

Curry, the driver of the Mercedes Nayeli Gonzalez, 22, Liberal, and a two-year-old child in the Mercedes were transported to Southwest Medical Center.

Gonzalez was pronounced dead just before 11 a.m.

The KHP reported all were properly restrained at the time of the accident.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas City, Kansas, clinic is offering a medication used to prevent infection in people at high risk of getting the AIDS virus.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration two years ago approved the HIV drug, Truvada, for HIV prevention.

The Kansas City Star reports that Sharon Lee, CEO of Family Health Care in Kansas City, Kansas, is holding a weekly clinic for people who want to take the drug. Lee says the clinic is among the first of its kind in the nation.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidelines recommending that doctors offer Truvada to people at substantial risk of HIV infection.