Senate approves school EpiPen requirement
The Senate on Tuesday approved legislation that would require local school boards to adopt policies to have EpiPens on hand and for a school nurse or employee to administer to students believed to be having an allergic reaction.
The amended Senate Bill 656 easily cleared the chamber and now heads to Gov. Bob McDonnell for consideration. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico, was drafted in part as a response to the case of a Chesterfield County elementary school student who died after being exposed to peanuts at school.
It looks like the State is once again involved in medical decisions. Is this a bad bill? What are the dangers of this drug? How do schools get mass doses of a prescription drug? Can a student carry an IpiPen on their person? I don’t know these answers.
Allergies can be run from being annoying to being deadly. The danger with some allergies is that you don’t know if you are dealing with annoyance or if this time it is going to kill. I worked with a man who went down to his apple tree to spray a hornet’s nest. He got stung. He went back to the house, got a Benadryl was at the sink and dropped dead before he could get the pill through his system. His throat simply closed. He knew he was allergic to bees. He couldn’t convince his doctor that he was really allergic. No EpiPen.
Students are required to log in all medicines with the school nurse or front office. How does a student who is stung on the athletic field or eats a peanut by mistake in the cafeteria get the much needed medication in time. All the deaths I have ever heard of from allergic reaction have been fairly instant. No time to fool around with retrival.
The danger with allergic reaction is you never know which encounter is going to push things over the edge. Histamines build up in your system. You can go along for years without a severe reaction, building up histamine and then one day, BAM. Allergies are nothing to fool with.
I would like to see schools allow older students to assume more responsibility for their own Epipens. A kid with allergy serious enough for an Epipen should carry one on their person at all times.
What about liability? The same parents who would clamor for the drug to be available would be the first ones to turn around and sue the lights off of anyone if little Horace took a bite out of little Ashley’s Nutter Butter, and no one could get to the EpiPen in time. I also have huge concerns about allowing non-medical staff to make clinical decisions and administer ANY medications to students, a routine practice in many schools.
So what is the answer? My granddaughter is highly allergic to shellfish and it is getting worse. She has other undetermined reactions to things. I think at 17 she should be able to carry that pen everywhere she goes including school. Put her in charge of it.
I was thinking about getting her a bracelet but shellfish and undetermined just sounds stupid.
BTW Emma, I was hoping you would come along and comment because I knew you would have more in depth knowledge about this than the average bear. What other liabilities?
What would the danger be of non medical staff if a kid is dying? I guess I am trying to weigh the liabilities.
I agree that kids should be able to carry their own pens, on a case-by-case basis, to ensure they understand and are responsible with the medication. I know a lot of families where even very young kids are very mature and involved in their medical issues, and they can certainly handle carrying an EpiPen if needed–especially the older ones. We’ve gone so far off the deep end with the “say no to drugs” stuff that our kids are lucky of they can get away with Tic Tacs in their pocket at school.
What concerns me is the day-to-day dispensing of routine meds by non medical staff. Fortunately, the City has a nurse in every school, so this isn’t as much of an issue as in the larger school systems that don’t have that resource. In a life-threatening emergency, I would hope the average person would jump in and help. I would think Good Samaritan laws would cover the emergency. But my concern is if the stuff is available in the school, but it is NOT used, for whatever reason. I see a lot of lawsuit potential there. A lot of people would need to be trained to ensure the drug is given properly and effectively, and that it’s readily accessible. In a busy school, that can be a lot to ask.
@Emma, thanks for adding your expertise. I would also worry about how long the stuff had been sitting there.
How long would it take to find Suzie Jones Epipen in the big drug drawer also.
To me this legislation is less about medicine and more about having access to an emergency device to buy time for a dedicated first responder to arrive and provide care.
I see this like I do an AED (automated external defibrillator) or a fire extinguisher. The AED doesn’t make you an ER doctor nor does the fire extinguisher make you a fire fighter but it buys time for the calvary to arrive.
My concern centers around the cost of the pens, storage of them and replacement when they go ‘stale’. Because those pens aren’t cheap.
I have some of the same questions. I also have concerns over travel time…time between an incident and a jab of the pen.
tell that to the parents of the child who is no longer with us due to the fact that a cheap epipen was not available for use. Funny thing, is that there are probably a number of epipens in every school (just prescribed to other students). I would think the schools already have to absorb the cost of training individuals on the usage of epipens – if they want to store them in the Nurses office, they are already taking responsibility.
Moon, get her the bracelet even if saying “shellfish and undetermined”. My oldest sister is allergic to about 125 different things with chocolate being the worst. She has a bracelet saying “Chocolate and Other Foods” so it at least aids medical personnel in knowing to run the bank of tests. Better to be on the safe side with granddaughter by having at least the warning there.
@Pat Herve As long as the Commonwealth is willing to cover the nurse/school system if for some reason the EpiPen couldn’t be obtained on time, I’m good with it. No nurse should have to worry about a threat to their licensure or financial stability if they happened to be unavailable at the time, or if an available staff member could not locate or properly dispense the med.
@Emma, the whole topic is scary. Allergies should never be taken lightly, that’s for sure.
I hope that the state will make sure that there are funds given for the inservice of all school personnel, from bus driver to teacher to office workers to custodians.
I hope there is an accompanying law to protect everyone involved.