October 21, 2005 -- Bill Would Set Federal Policy for Food Allergy in Schools

Legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives October 17 directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop a national policy for managing the risk of food allergy and anaphylaxis in schools. Currently, there are no federal guidelines and school nurses frequently develop their own, often leaving parents to face entirely different food allergy management approaches when their children change schools or school districts. The bill would require HHS to develop a policy that could be adopted voluntarily by all schools; the policy would oblige parents to provide schools detailed information about food allergies and require maintenance of a file by the school nurse or principal for each student at risk of anaphylaxis. The policy would also call for individual schools and local emergency services providers to communicate with each other and to have instructions in place for emergency medical response, and it would specify who in a school would administer epinephrine when a nurse was not available. It would allow self-medication by responsible students in schools where self-administration is not prohibited by state law. The full text of the proposed legislation, H.R. 4063, can be read and downloaded at http://thomas.loc.gov.