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.
