Original Allergy Emergency Kit In The Press

Fishertown - A new storage strategy in the Chestnut Ridge school buildings makes getting to and using life-saving EpiPens much easier. Sharron Gordon, nurse at Chestnut Ridge Middle School, said new EpiPen boxes were installed in all of the district schools last week. EpiPens deliver a single does of epinephrine to provide quick relief for those who suffer severe allergic reactions. A dose can be fast-acting and self-administered....

• Read Full Article: Emergency EpiPens accessible at Ridge

Brandon Wilson used to ask himself what’s with all these food allergies. That is until he and his wife learned the hard way that their daughter Rosemary is allergic to tree nuts.

“One cashew and she went into full anaphylaxis,” Wilson said, while at the Mokena School District 159 meeting Wednesday night. “By the grace of God we had a bottle of Benadryl. That was enough until the ambulance came.”

• Read Full Article Mokena Father Donating Allergy Emergency Kits To D159
• Read Full Article Mokena SD 159 officials, parents discuss options to protect food-allergic children

The Original Allergy Emergency Kit founder Brandon Wilson challenges his new friends at Mylan Specialty and Sanofi / Kaleo to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge with help from some shrieking little girls.

• Watch Full Video ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

To a child suffering anaphylactic shock, an epinephrine autoinjector, or EpiPen, can be a life-saver. Newman now has a school-wide network of easy-to-access EpiPens – the first program of its kind at a Louisiana school – and we have Alan ’56 and Arlene Philipson to thank....

....Located in easy-access boxes at key locations throughout the School – including the Dining Hall, the Lower School Office, and Jefferson Building – these EpiPens pens are “undesignated,” which means they are not prescribed to a specific student, but to the School for general use. With the Health Center’s proactive attention to the danger of severe allergies, these EpiPens thankfully have not been needed, but if they are, one will always be close by. Last fall Newman’s Nurse, Erin Lake Friend ’95, trained faculty and staff in each division to administer the potentially life-saving injections using these pens.

“Locating EpiPens throughout our campus just puts that extra layer of protection for our students, and, I hope, gives some peace of mind to parents of kids with allergies,” Nurse Friend said.

• Read Full Article Newman Leads Independent Schools in EpiPen Program, Thanks to the Philipson Family

The Women's Legacy Circle at The Carle Center for Philanthropy donated 71 AEK cabinets to schools in Champaign County.

...For Champaign County’s schools, a Carle doctor is writing the EpiPen prescriptions that allow trained school staffs to administer the shots to anyone who needs emergency treatment, and Carle is now providing designated wall cabinets to the schools so their EpiPens can be visible and handy, rather than tucked away in a school office that might be locked.

Most states have laws in place that allow schools to stock epinephrine, and in a handful of states it’s mandatory for schools to have it available.

Illinois schools can voluntarily keep EpiPens on hand under a 2011 state law. An update to the law that went into effect this past August allows all trained school staff, not just school nurses, to administer this treatment to anyone they believe in good faith is experiencing anaphylaxis and frees them to act without fear of liability.

• Read the full article: The News Gazette