Today I am going to ask the school nurse at my children's elementary school how many Epi-Pens she has in the school medicine cabinet. My guess is that it is upwards of twenty. Then I am going to ask her, "What would you do if a child at our school had their first allergic reaction to a peanut and went into anaphylactic shock?"
You see, she probably has 20 Epi-Pens in her cabinet. As a trained nurse, she probably knows the signs of severe anaphylaxis. She knows that it can be fatal. She knows that there might not be time for paramedics to arrive at school because death from anaphylaxis can occur in minutes.
But all the Epi-Pens in her cabinet are prescriptions for specific students with know food allergies. Would she use one of them? Would she worry that she would lose her license, or job?
Take this worry away from your school nurse. Read this excellent op-ed byRuchi Gupta, an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University.
How to ensure no schoolchild dies of an allergy attack
Then call your Senator and tell them that you support the S. 1884: School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act