This sounds to me like an allergic reaction to NEA leftist brainwashing and political correctnessGee, I wonder how many Homeschoolers are affected by this?
Posted on 06/21/2002 7:11:48 AM PDT by ex-Texan
Rash of Rashes in Schools Perplexes CDC
Mysterious outbreak has now spread to 27 states
By Amanda Gardner
HealthScoutNews Reporter THURSDAY, June 20 (HealthScoutNews) -- Federal health officials are scratching their heads over a mysterious set of rashes now afflicting schoolchildren in 27 states.
An initial report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in March reported outbreaks in 14 states: Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia. Since then, another 13 states have joined the list, says the CDC. The new states are: Alabama, Alaska, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, and New Jersey.
Similar rashes have also been reported in Canada. Although the number of reported rashes is growing, "there's still no evidence for a common cause for all of the reports," CDC spokesman Mike Groutt says. "Investigations have identified causes for some of the rashes occurring in some of the schools. Regardless of the cause of the rashes, including those of unknown origin, reports indicate that they are self-limiting and affected children have few if any accompanying signs or symptoms."
No single cause has been identified, and the CDC emphasizes there's no evidence that all of the rashes are linked. Officials have also been quick to point out that rashes are common among schoolchildren and can be caused by a variety of factors. They include medications, dry or sensitive skin, eczema, allergies, viral infections and environmental factors.
However, the recent spate of rashes have raised concern because they've occurred simultaneously in various locales across the nation. They also began in the wake of Sept. 11 and subsequent anthrax attacks.
Between October 2001 and May 2002, rashes were reported among groups of schoolchildren at about 110 U.S. elementary, middle and high schools. The number of children affected at each school ranged from five to 274 (or less than 1 percent to 47 percent of the student population). Girls accounted for varying proportions of the affected -- from 33 percent to 100 percent.
The rashes themselves also had varied characteristics. Most children reported an itchy, sunburn-like rash on the cheeks and arms, a burning sensation on the skin or a hive-like reaction that moved from one part of the body to another. They tended to go away on their own, either within in an hour or sometimes not for more than a month.
Some states have managed to track down a cause. In New York, an outbreak among 242 elementary and middle-school students (representing 7 percent of the population of their school district) between January and April was determined to be the result of parvovirus B19, which causes fifth disease, an infection of red blood cells. Alaska, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, and Mississippi have also had cases associated with parvovirus B19. Other outbreaks might be psychogenic -- a response to seeing another child with a rash.
For the meantime, the CDC seems to be playing it cool, emphasizing the rashes do go away on their own and that most children don't have any other, more disruptive symptoms. The organization "is continuing to monitor reports of groups of schoolchildren with rashes and is providing technical assistance to state and local health departments," the researchers report in tomorrow's issue of the CDC publication Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
What To Do
The outbreaks are likely to end as the school year closes. Learn more about school health from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Also, the New York State Department of Health has a primer on fifth disease.
SOURCES: Mike Groutt, spokesman, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta; June 21, 2002, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
Copyright © 2002 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
If this proves to be true, then the solution is simple.
FRegards.
LOL.
Gee, could it be that now that everybody is looking, they're finding rashes?
I guarantee that at any point in time I could find some sort of rash on one of my three kids.
Definitely fodder for the tin-foil wearing crowd.
My doctor simply could not deal with it. Nothing he tried did any good.
I called my dad--a retired dermatologist.
"Does it glow under UV?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"Well, if it does, use X, and if it doesn't, use Y."
We checked. It did glow under UV. The local doc prescribed "X" (I have forgotten the details). A teensy bottle of an oily liquid. One drop a day for three days. Rash, she is gone! Voila! Presto!
My dad was good.
--Boris
This sounds to me like an allergic reaction to NEA leftist brainwashing and political correctnessGee, I wonder how many Homeschoolers are affected by this?
There was a good recent article on this. I think it was in the New York Times, which means that since it has been more than seven days, it is no longer visible on the Internet for free.
Anyway, here is the cause. It is a cause that the CDC refuses to name because naming the cause is politically incorrect. In fact, it is so politically incorrect that even some here may not like it to be mentioned.
The cause is hysteria.
According to the article, when one schoolgirl (most rash "victims" are girls) gets it, so do their acquaintances. Doctors in the know call it "line of sight transmission." This does not mean that the girls are crazy. The author herself noted that just writing about rashes and itches causes authors to have, well, itches and a bit of a rash.
Although such rash clusters occur all the time, the event that seems to have marked the start of the current "rash" of outbreaks was not 9/11, but rather the anthrax attack.
This is not to say that all rash outbreaks are psychologically caused. Sometimes an entire cluster has a medical or environmental cause. However, this a quite rare. Sometimes one person will break out from an underlying medical cause and others will break out in sympathy. Breaking out in sympathy is not a bad thing. Some of my readers are probably itching right now, and there may be a small rash at the itch site. If anyone has a really big rash now, my post has succeeded far more than I had hoped was possible :-)
Right!
He was so good you went to your doctor 1st. even though your dad was a dermatologist.
Some of your cylinders aren't firing.
Sorry......you left yourself open for that one or were you checking to see if we were paying attention.;)
There are no "good" articles in the New York Times.
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