Still No Cause Known for School Rashes

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Still No Cause Known for School Rashes

by KYW's Mark Abrams

It has been three weeks since the first outbreak of skin rashes in the

Quakertown School District in Bucks County and school officials admit

they're still stumped on what's causing them.

Quakertown Superintendent Jim Scanlon says as of Thursday, nearly 200 cases

of the rash have shown up in students in all nine schools in the district.

He says the results of environmental tests at the Richland Elementary

School - site of the largest outbreak of rashes - ruled out possibilities,

but haven't offered any clues on a source:

" Everything we've tested for is negative so all the things, dust, mold, dust

mites, spider mites, all that stuff. That's not causing it. "

Scanlon says blood tests and other medical tests haven't pinpointed a cause,

either:

" I don't think we're any closer than we were a couple of days into it. "

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta are gathering data

from Quakertown and schools in other states where similar rashes have

erupted in hopes of finding a common link.