[Jeff Head]

The outbreaks are likely to end as the school year closes.

If this proves to be true, then the solution is simple.

FRegards.

[RedWhiteBlue]

What? If there were 27 states where NO children had any sort of a rash, THAT would be news.

[EggsAckley]

morning

[parsifal]

Interesting how this rash of outbreaks occurred all at once. parsy. BTTT

[Seeking the truth]

Obviously, we need some kind of new Federal Program to combat this! We should also maintain a staff Dermatologist at each publically financed school.

I propose one Dermatologist per 125 students, just like the ration for the head shrinkers.

[WKB]

Don't worry folks! Art Bell is scratching for evidence on this as we write!

[Tex-Con-Man]

I would think this may be related to the antibiotics everyone started taking as a result of the anthrax scare.

[boris]

Once I picked up a rash in my armpit. I believe it came from using the gym-supplied towels at my company health center.

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

[cgbg]

This sounds to me like an allergic reaction to NEA leftist brainwashing and political correctness:

"Mommy, that teacher says the word 'tolerance' so often my skin crawls."

[eno_]

My daughter had this kind of rash. Responded to Benadryl. Allergic reaction to something. Never figured out what.

[Steve Eisenberg]

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.

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 :-)

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

It would be rash to rationalize this rash of rashes.

[Don Myers]

bttt