Massachusetts Personal Injury Library
How Safe are Our Children in America's Schools? Part 1
How safe are our children in today’s schools? Recently published studies show that our children’s health is adversely affected in many schools, both inside and outside the school building where they spend many hours each day.
A recent study indicates that 60 percent of American schools have some kind of environmental problem severe enough to cause potential health issues in students. Those statistics say there are 14 million children being affected by these poor environmental conditions. In the last decade the rate of allergic diseases — like asthma — has doubled in the nation’s classrooms. Some doctors say that’s also the place to look for the cause.
According to Michael Shannon, MD, MPH, director of the Pediatric Environmental health Center and associate chief of Emergency Services at Children’s Hospital Boston, the main environmental causes are: molds, improper use of cleaning solvents, shop chemicals, art supplies, unclean carpets and curtains, pet dander carried to school by children, and HVAC units that are insufficient to properly regulate ventilation, temperature and humidity. Outdoor environmental conditions, including pressure treated wood, proximity to toxic waste sites, soil contamination, and overexposure to ultraviolet radiation, also have been associated with health problems in children. Shannon is advocating a new model of pediatric care that looks at the environmental impacts in schools and on children’s health.
The Pediatric Environmental Health Center at Children’s Hospital– Boston is collecting data on this issue. From this data, Shannon reports that pediatricians are treating increasing numbers of children experiencing headaches, respiratory ailments, eye irritation, lethargy and a lack of concentration associated with the schools they attend.
One recent example of this problem was reported at McKinley Elementary School in Fairfield, Conn., according to CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod.
Some 40-60 teachers and kids reported a rash of unexplained symptoms. When local allergist Dr. John Santilli tested for mold, they found the typical indoor molds aspergillus, penicillium. But what they found that was significant was the mold stachibotrys. Two cases were serious enough to require hospitalization.
According to town selectmen Ken Flatto, the problem started with some late summer flooding. Teacher Joellen Lawson said, “My symptoms — the respiratory symptoms, the neurological, the sensory disturbances that I have been suffering for years were totally consistent with exposure to high levels of mold,” she said. Lawson is now pushing Connecticut legislators to enact new air quality standards in state classrooms. She said, “Children should not have to attend school where they are going to acquire a life-long illness.”
Hopefully, President-elect Barack Obama will address some of these sick school issues when he takes office on January 20, 2009. As part of his five-point economic stimulus plan, the president-elect said that he will “launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen…[M]y economic recovery plan will launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen. We will repair broken schools, make them energy-efficient, and put new computers in our classrooms. Because to help our children compete in a 21st century economy, we need to send them to 21st century schools.”
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