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Canadian Mom on Mission to Get City to Chop Down Oak Trees…Because They Threaten Kids’ Allergies & Can Be Used to ‘Bully & Torment’

Nov. 15, 2012 11:14am Billy Hallowell

Donna Giustizia Wants ACORN Trees Cut Down Over Childs Allergies

Photo Credit: AP

Canadian mother Donna Giustizia, motivated by the dangers surrounding childhood nut allergies, is on a mission to have the oak trees near her kid’s school removed. Her reasoning? She believes that the acorns that frequently drop from these trees put children with severe allergies at risk.

The oaks are present on property which is owned by the City of Vaughan, Canada; the land is right next to St. Stephen Catholic Elementary School, where one of her children attends. While this educational facility is nut-free, Giustizia believes that the acorns just outside of its doors are a deadly danger that also needs to be addressed.

“A false sense of security is putting a sign on the door that says nut-free and there’s nuts all over the place,” Giustizia proclaimed. “I’m not a crazy mom, I’m not asking for anything that’s not already there.”

She took her arguments to the local government last week, where she appealed for removal of the trees. While officials listened intently, they also expressed concern about what sort of precedent a removal of the trees would set. If an authorization is made to cut them down, then other citizens may appeal for their removal in other areas — a cumbersome and potentially costly domino effect. The city is currently preparing an investigative report on the issue.

In her appeal to appear before the committee, Giustizia noted her fears about the tree nuts. She said that the acorns are “becoming a great cause of anxiety amongst all students with tree allergies.” Curiously, she also noted that they “can also be used to bully and torment children.”

Experts weighed in on the mother’s claims. Dr. Paul Keith of McMaster University noted that acorns are not generally ingested in the U.S., thus, while it’s possible for those allergic to tree nuts to react, it’s rare.

Donna Giustizia (Photo Credit: ABC News/City of Vaughan)

“The only situation I could see is if they were bullied and forced to eat them,” he told TheStar.com. “You really have to eat them to have a reaction.”

Pediatric allergist Dr. Maria Asper added that she’s not sure there’s any real danger so long as the nuts aren’t ingested.

“I’m not aware of any reports of children having an anaphylactic reaction upon contact with acorns, so I’m not sure what the risk really is,” she said.

In an interview with ABC News, Dr. Clifford Bassett, medical director of asthma and allergy care at New York University, echoed this sentiment. Simply playing with acorns, he said, would likely not pose a danger.

“There’s no relationship between acorns and peanuts. If people have food allergies, they need to work with an allergist on prevention, avoidance and preparedness,” he concluded. “People with food allergies need to be careful and have a plan.”

St. Stephen Catholic has said that it will respect whatever decision is made by Vaughan officials.

(H/T: TheStar.com)

Carousel image courtesy of Shutterstock.com.

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Comments (173)

banjarmon
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:42am
She not crazy, She is just a NUT CASE!!!

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- Red Meat
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:51am
  Canadian’s in general are nut bags.
  
  Report this comment
- ronin_6
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:55am
  Beat me to it.
  
  Report this comment
- ronin_6
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:58am
  My son brought me an article the other day that said these nut allergies maybe related to children living in too sterile an enviroment. They don’t get exposed to all the bacteria and germs that they used to so their immune systems never develop properly. Think it was in Readers Digest.
  
  Report this comment
- 4XGrace
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 12:02pm
  Get a life B!!!! Really?!?!
  Nut case to be sure.
  
  Report this comment
- Shasta
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 12:04pm
  @Red Meat, after our last election, we should not be throwing any ‘nut case’ stones towards people of any other country.
  
  Report this comment
- pdw
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 12:12pm
  It is nice to know not all the idiots are in the US.
  
  Report this comment
- Anonymous T. Irrelevant
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 12:25pm
  RONIN_6
  I can believe that. I had always heard that to keep children healthy, you need to develop their immune system, so when I raised my three girls, I let them go out and play in mud and dirt. The caught the usual children’s diseases, chicken pox, etc., but are generally healthy and are almost NEVER sick.
  We have a family friend who never let her kids play in dirt and tried to keep them from getting exposed to dirt and stuff. Her kids are always sick, now. Every time we hear from them, someone is sick.
  I think over-protective mothers are one of the greatest threats to their children’s health.
  
  Report this comment
- jblaze
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 12:31pm
  Ok, I am Canadian, and not all of us, like not all American’s, are nuts. Just some are! She definately is!
  
  Report this comment
- MountainJac
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 1:18pm
  I have a 4 daughter who is deadly allergic to most Sunscreens. I have more of a justification for petitioning my town to ban sunscreen. But am I going to, No, because that is ridiculous. I am Canadian, but I am not a loon like this mother.
  
  Report this comment
- oldguy49
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 1:24pm
  move to the middle east…..no allergy problem and the rest of the people there are nuts also
  
  Report this comment
- Individualism
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 1:24pm
  i am in favor of the proposal, allergies suck and use up an insane amount of tissues to get the blood out your nose.
  
  Report this comment
- 3-Blue
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 1:51pm
  Just another piece of evidence that makes Ann Coulter’s case that women should not be allowed to vote. They brought us Obama too… Maybe we should just kill all of the people. People kill people much more than nuts do… Makes sense, right? :)
  
  Report this comment
- Bluefish49
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 2:05pm
  Agree….if her kid hasn’t been bullied yet that will probably soon change.
  
  Report this comment
- Xiccarph
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 2:39pm
  Wow, an assault nut ban! First they go after the smaller acorns, next it will be all the other nut-bearing trees, then the venerable walnut will fall to the axe. Coconuts are being targeted for the future for the sake of the children. Kills the trees and stop bullying!
  
  Waiting for that asteroid hit….time to clean house.
  
  Report this comment
- Watchyer6
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 3:02pm
  Excellent, Ban.
  
  Report this comment
- audiemurphy
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 3:15pm
  Ok let me get the strait…….. An American is calling all Canadians “nut bags”
  cause some idiotic woman want all those trees cut down and she happens to be Canadian?
  This is the Same “American” who’s fellow countryman re-elected Obama!!!
  hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
  think about who the real nut age are here. dumb a s s
  
  Report this comment
- desertspeaks
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 3:22pm
  then keep your genetically inferior children indoors away from the horror’s that those killer tree’s pose!
  
  Report this comment
- Jake Dog2
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 4:29pm
  I agree a NUT case. Teach her kids to kicka** and stop whinning. I got picked on whin I was a kid but I learned to take care of myself.
  
  Report this comment
- Walkabout
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 6:08pm
  If a kid has a dread of allergies and/or real allergies, then there are kids that would use that thing (nuts) to torment them.
  
  Many teachers will stand idly by & do nothing. that is where the problem is.
  
  Report this comment
- Walkabout
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 6:11pm
  I agree the woman is nutty. She is refusing to tackle the problem head on. Talking to her kid, identifying bullies, and making the school administrators (& teachers) take appropriate action.
  
  Report this comment
- PilgrimStuckInBizarroWorld
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 6:33pm
  You can’t fix STUPID!
  
  Report this comment
- Eastinfection
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 7:50pm
  If you’re going to cut down Oak Trees… do it for a good cause… like making hardwood floors.
  
  Report this comment
- dugbru
  Posted on November 17, 2012 at 10:30am
  @ red meat … Go look in the mirror.. Our left up here are crazy, but yours are vile and crazy .. Look what you just elected as a President, WAIT, that’s RE elected… 4 years of Obama failures, economy imploding, scandals like fast and furious .. and your left re-elected him.. As they say people who live in glass houses..
  
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Tigress1
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:39am
Actually this is pretty funny. Now the kids WILL use trees to torment others! They will take a leaf and chase the other kids around and say “Are you scaaaaared? Scared of a tree?” Kids wouldn’t think of this unless someone told them not to do it!

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biohazard23
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:39am
She says the acorns are becoming a source of anxiety? Gee, I wonder why, Ms Looney Tunes.

Then again, she IS Canadian, so….. There’s that….

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RANGER1965
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:35am
Committed ******** usually win these battles simply because they yell louder and never give up. Reasonable people weigh in on the matter then get on with their lives. ******** have no life other than their current crusade.
The only hope is if you can get some tree hugger ******** to attack the acorn lady. Then you will have a titanic (and entertaining) battle between ********. The media won’t know what to do, or who too support. Since enviromentalism seems to have a higher priority than child allergies these days, I think the tree-huggin’ ******** will eventually win.

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HaploVoss
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:33am
She’s just confused. Attempting to show empathy and infiltrate the conservative cause – nobody explained the difference between an acorn and ACORN to her…

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kaydeebeau
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:33am
How is that now we have all these food allergies that never seemed to exist when I was a kid growing up in the 70s? Occasionally there would be a chocolate allergy but none of this other stuff

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- DadRocked
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:49am
  Sad that so many people feel that a kid should be playing indoors instead of letting the natural buildup of immune system take its course. One hears it regulary at work of all of these allergies… That is if you still had a job…
  
  Report this comment
- Lloyd Drako
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 1:27pm
  @DadRocked: You are almost certainly right. The current proliferation of autoimmune disorders generally is probably a function of our lack of exposure to microorganisms with which we co-evolved for a million years, but whose absence from our environment now makes us vulnerable. The history of some infectious diseases is similar. Polio epidemics date only from around 1900, when for the first time children were raised in conditions clean enough to avoid mild cases in early childhood, which conferred some immunity thereafter. It’s notable that it provoked widespread panic only when it began to affect upper and middle class families.
  
  Report this comment
- coolcat
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 3:40pm
  Back in the 70′s I had a cousin who was allergic to nuts. He coped with it by taking responsibility and not eating nuts. Guess what it worked.
  
  The gems we have in schools nowadays are in a huge bubble. No wonder many of them are so screwed up.
  
  Report this comment
kickagrandma
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:33am
JESUS GOD. PLEASE COME SOON!

Or else, lead us into battle, `cause the enemy grows crazier everyday. The woman in this story apparently neither knows YOU or that YOU designed and made the trees just for us. I don’t know how YOU do it, GOD. Does Noah ring a bell??? Oh, I know, that’s why YOU wrote for us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation…” so when YOU hear it, it also reminds YOU… Got it, GOD! Love YOU and LOVE YOUR TREES!!!! The woman in the story, not so much.

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- Winedude
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 12:05pm
  “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
  Then he is not omnipotent.
  Is he able, but not willing?
  Then he is malevolent.
  Is he both able and willing?
  Then whence cometh evil?
  Is he neither able nor willing?
  Then why call him God?” Epicurus
  
  Report this comment
- Metallicat
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 12:14pm
  All the world is a stage,and God will judge our performance,he doesnt write the acts
  
  Report this comment
forthepeople
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:32am
Wouldn’t it be easier to move the child instead of the trees ?
‘cannot see the forest for the trees’ is now:
‘cannot see the common sense for the political correct ‘

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john vincent
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:30am
I would like to represent the tree, (who has no legal representation) and say this oak tree, and others like it, have as much right to exist as long as the sky is blue. I know trees hold more honesty than people, and this womans insane baseless charges should be thrown out of court, God forbid it ever gets this far.

This womans issues, and any who agree with her, are much deeper than an ‘allergy’ or ‘bully’ thing. Who said ‘liberalism is a mental disorder’ is spot on-if tyhis was not so sad, it would be funny.

I vote for the oak trees right to life! and the woman, 30 days in the slammer

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- kickagrandma
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:38am
  Sign me up. I’m on your team!
  
  Report this comment
- Al J Zira
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:47am
  No! Don’t sign up for tree representation! That’s a more dangerous precedent than the tree cutting. Next thing you know trees will have rights and the left would L-O-V-E to have that become the norm. Think of all the environmental wackos that would run to the courts representing trees and rocks. In fact, if you check into Agenda21 you’ll find that to be part of the plan.
  
  Report this comment
- john vincent
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:59am
  cmon al-
  
  kick
  and I-
  
  agree that this woman is nuts, and in THIS case, I will stand with the tree. One can do this without wandering off the reservatiuon………
  
  Report this comment
momrules
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:29am
Ordinarily I would just laugh at this woman’s extreme stupidity but we have a world where stupidity is rewarded.
She has her talking point buzz words down pat……bully, security, deadly danger to children…….The sane people in her vicinity need to watch out for her. Her kind of crazy is contagious.

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- CatB
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:36am
  @MOM .. . I think it is ironic that she wants to cut down “nut” trees … she is the QUEEN of the NUTS!
  
  (and she is so “uncaring” about the squirrels who eat the nuts)
  
  Report this comment
Ted Zeppelin
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:28am
.
This woman should be be the Secretary of the Interior here. She’s certainly dumb enough and misinformed enough to be a good Democrat.

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ResistSocialism
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:28am
This is nutty

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Metallicat
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:27am
No you are not a crazy mom, You are insane. Cutting down trees because of health concerns over the few,will do far worse to damage the masses. not including the environment and wildlife. Do your job as a mother and stop expecting the government to remove anything that requires you to be a responsible mother, instead of an irrational insane woman.

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LindaTea
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:27am
She can move to NM or ARIZONA, they dont’ have any trees there!! insanity has taken over!!!

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- Al J Zira
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:51am
  She lives in Canada. Let her stay in Canada. We don’t need to import loons, we have enough of our own.
  
  Report this comment
- ephraimtheox
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 12:15pm
  Ya she’s nuts for sure but you Americans are taking crazy to a whole new level (especially after these last couple weeks). I’m not sure what’s more embarrassing… the tree story or your military.
  
  Report this comment
- gradstudent
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 1:43pm
  Except I live in New Mexico and we have trees all over the place. And they are not just trees planted by people. We have pinon trees that people actually eat the nuts from. We have fir trees. We have oak trees. Etc. But good job being completely misinformed.
  
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Tigress1
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:25am
She must be an Obama supporter. As Fred Sanford used to say: “Dummy!”

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- mom4times
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:38am
  wasn’t it actually “Big Dummy” ; )
  
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- Tigress1
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:56am
  @Mom4times, Ha! Ha! I think you are right! Fred Sanford was awesome! Those were the days before political correctness. Nice wasn’t it?
  
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- Metallicat
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 12:01pm
  I think fred used “Big dummy” only when referring to his son Lamont.
  
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Rothbardian_in_the_Cleve
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:24am
If we are getting rid of nuts, they should start with her.

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- Uncurable wound
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:31am
  If she had another brain,it would Die of loneliness !
  
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IndyGuy
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:23am
Hey idiot Mom…Hows about you MOVE to the desert???

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- CatB
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:38am
  Better headline … “NUT WANTS NUT FREE ZONE”
  
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- retribution11
  Posted on November 15, 2012 at 12:47pm
  well, we can move her to our desert! North of the tree line in the arctic.
  
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BlackCrow
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:23am
What about that free health care in Canada? No allergy shots?

Secondly she comes into my yard with a saw she is likely to develop an allergy to saws.

If she is that afraid for her kid then home school.

I can go on.

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The_Jerk
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:22am
Move.

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OUT THE REGRESSIVES
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:22am
If you look at the family tree of this lady, it IS an oak tree and she IS the nut that fell from it.

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ZAP
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:22am
Skip the trees,remove your kid….

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Tri-ox
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:21am
What?

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blanco5
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:21am
If socialsim caters to the common good, why is it individuals are able to make decisions for the rest of us?

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Stelex
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:20am
She’s extremely qualified to be in the Obama administration. Sec of State maybe???/

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mom4times
Posted on November 15, 2012 at 11:18am
a true nut job….nothing more can be said

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