The deaths of two girls in Illinois and Virginia from severe food allergies have helped lift efforts to get schools to stockpile emergency medications that can save lives, and now President Barack Obama is getting involved.
Obama is expected to sign a bill that offers a financial hand to states if schools stockpile epinephrine, which is considered the prime treatment for people with serve allergies. The medications is given by injection of a preloaded EpiPens or similar devices.
"Everything is moving in the direction which adheres to our mission, which is to keep kids safe and included in schools," said John Lehr, the chief executive officer of the Food Allergy Research and Education advocacy organization.
According to the Associated Press, the deaths of Katelyn Carlson, 13, in a Chicago school in 2010, and of Ammaria Johnson, 7, in a Chesterfield County, Va., school in 2012 raised awareness of the dangers of food allergies.
Last month, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention issued its first-ever guidelines to schools on how to protect kids from food allergies. About 1 in 20 U.S. children have food allergies, a 50 percent increase from the late 1990s, according to a recent CDC survey.
According to Yahoo News, voluntary guidelines call on schools to take steps to protect children against food attacks. Schools or educational programs should restrict nuts, shellfish or other foods that can cause allergic reactions, and make sure emergency allergy medicine, like EpiPens, are always available.
"The need is here" for a more comprehensive, standardized way for schools to deal with this issue, said Dr. Wayne Giles, who oversaw development of the advice for the CDC.
About 15 states have already set up polices, including numerous individual schools or school districts.
Children's allergies to peanuts, dairy and other food cost the United States nearly $25 billion a year, according to the Los Angeles Times. Dr. Ruchi Gupta, a pediatrician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and a professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, found food allergies affect eight percent of American kids.
To prevent incidents, parents and teachers should identify children with food allergies and have a plan to prevent exposures and manage any reactions. Schools are required to train teachers or others how to use medicines like epinephrine injectors, or have medical staff to do the job. When it comes to planning a class event or a field trip, teachers should be aware of the food the children are consuming and designate someone to carry epinephrine.
Already, Pittsburgh-based Mylan Inc., which markets and distributes EpiPens, said it is has distributed free EpiPens to more than 30,000 schools to use in case of an emergency. It has a program called EpiPen4Schools that donates four EpiPens to schools that request them.