[MineralMan]

Any student with asthma who has a prescribed inhaler should be allowed to carry it with him/her at all times for use when needed. Schools which prohibit this are putting themselves in line for some crippling lawsuits should a child die for lack of a prescribed inhaler. This is just ridiculous.

Same applies to epi-pens for extreme allergies. If the child is old enough to have a doctor prescribe self-administered epi-pen therapy, then schools should allow the child to carry the thing. Any other response could easily come too late, causing the death of a student, who could otherwise be saved by self-injection.

It's going to take a couple of deaths and huge lawsuits to make schools understand that their "zero-tolerance" policies are stupid in the case of prescribed live-saving drugs, which must be administered immediately to save a life.

[George from New England]

"Unions are killing our kids"

Think you'll ever see a headline like that? NOT!

[gracie1]

There have been deaths and there have been lawsuits already. A few years ago a child died in the nurses office from an asthma attack in one of the small towns around here. The problem was that noone in the office knew how to work the nebulizer machine. In many California schools there is no full time nurse. Each school may have a health aide who also has other duties. The school district that this occured in has an ironclad policy of absolutely no medication of any sort is to be carried on the student. The parents sued, but the school settled and the district as far as I know has refused to change it's policy.