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Smith to Highlight Food Allergy Safety Bill Aimed at Protecting School Children
Measure will focus on making epinephrine injectors more widely available in schools
MT. LEBANON, May 17 – State Rep. Matt Smith, D-Allegheny, will highlight the importance of House Bill 2067, which will save the lives of the increasing number of children with food allergies, at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 17, at Lincoln Elementary School in Mt. Lebanon.
Mt. Lebanon School District Superintendent Dr. Timothy Steinhauer, parents of children with food allergies and district health personnel will join Rep. Smith to share their personal experiences related to food allergies and the daily challenges they face in combating the sometimes life-threatening risks.
Building upon similar legislation that recently passed in Virginia and Maryland, HB 2067 aims to ensure children suffering from severe food allergies have access to epinephrine injectors in all types of public and private school settings.
The legislation calls for school districts to more closely follow Pennsylvania Guidelines for Management of Food Allergies in Schools that were established in 2010, emphasizing the need for all districts to obtain a prescription from a physician for a supply of epinephrine injectors. The injectors would not be reserved for a particular student. Rather, the devices could be used for any student who goes into anaphylactic (severe allergic) shock as a result of a food allergy, even if the student has not been previously diagnosed with a food allergy and the child does not have his or her own prescribed injector at the school.
This effort also builds upon legislation passed in 2010 that allows a student with severe allergies to carry an epinephrine injector upon approval by the student’s physician and parents. HB 2067 further fills the gap for children who have not been diagnosed with a food allergy or forgets or misplaces an injector.
Mt. Lebanon is an example of what Rep. Smith hopes will become the norm statewide. The school district provides access to epinephrine injectors in its elementary schools, middle schools and at the high school, regardless of whether individual students have prescriptions for them.
“Right now, these injectors are available in some districts but not all, and definitely not in every school in each of our 500 districts statewide, “Rep. Smith said. “When our children spend roughly six hours and up to two meals per day in a school setting we have a duty to ensure they all have reasonable and easy access to this lifesaving medical device. We should regard epinephrine injectors in the same manner that we treat defibrillators in public spaces. One life lost to such a preventable death is too many when we have the tools to prevent it.”
Earlier this year, a 7-year-old Virginia girl died at school during recess following an allergic reaction to a peanut. School policy prevented the school from keeping a supply of epinephrine injectors on hand and from using another child’s injector for a child suffering an allergic reaction. (See http://abcn.ws/IJyiOa)
Estimates have shown that more than 6 million children suffer from food allergies. More troubling, a 2005 study found 24 percent of severe allergic reactions occurred in children with no prior history of life-threatening allergies, meaning a first allergy attack could be fatal, either through swelling that shuts off airways or through a significant drop in blood pressure.
Children exposed to a potential food allergy need immediate medical attention following an exposure. An epinephrine injector sends adrenaline into the victim’s system to slow down the allergic reaction, providing emergency personnel time to treat victims – often saving their lives.
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