EPA joins hunt to uncover the cause of a rash that has closed two schools

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http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/2621945.htm

Thu, Feb. 07, 2002

EPA joins hunt to uncover the cause of a rash that has closed two schools

By Marc Schogol and Zlati Meyer

Inquirer Staff Writers

Federal and state environmental investigators are expected in Quakertown

today to determine what is causing rashes afflicting more than 100

Quakertown students and teachers, forcing the closing of a second elementary

school this week.

Superintendent R. Scanlon said last night he is closing Quakertown

Elementary, where eight new cases were reported yesterday. Richland

Elementary, where 80 students and two teachers have reported the mysterious

rashes in recent days, has been closed since Tuesday.

Scanlon said both schools would remain closed for the rest of the week.

Most of the rash reports involve a red, raised outbreak of bumps on faces,

legs, arms and chests. Many students complained of mild itching.

As investigators from the Pennsylvania State Health Department and the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency planned their Quakertown inquiry, New York

authorities were investigating rashes that broke out Tuesday among public

school students in Queens. Officials stressed they had no indication the

outbreaks were related.

A similar rash outbreak was reported in Fairfax, Va., in November and

December, but officials have said that they had closed their investigation

without learning the cause.

Scanlon said he has spoken with officials of the affected districts in New

York and Prince County.

Tom Bancroft, the Quakertown teachers' union president, said yesterday that

teachers believe the district is " doing everything we could ever think is

possible " to find and eliminate the cause. A spokesman for the Pennsylvania

State Education Association, , said, " Any unsolved mystery is a

concern. . . . Those concerns have heightened post-9/11. "

Concerned parents of students from Richland and Quakertown Elementary

Schools gathered last night to hear the latest findings in what first was

explained as a reaction to a carpet-cleaning solution.

State Health Department spokesman McGarvey stressed that, with last

year's anthrax incidents in mind, state health officials are taking the

Quakertown cases seriously. He said medical evidence so far indicates an

environmental, rather than an infectious, cause.

" Whenever you start to see a cluster of individuals being sick, you start to

worry that it could be anthrax again or that some other bioterrorism

incident is going on, " he said.

For that and other reasons, " obviously parents are getting upset, " Bucks

County Public Health Administrator Gordian V. Ehrlacher said yesterday.

Doctors from St. Luke's Quakertown Hospital who have treated and tested rash

victims said yesterday they suspect some kind of irritant or allergic

reaction, perhaps through eating or breathing.

Dr. Jahre, chief of medicine and infectious diseases at St. Luke's,

said the youngsters have shown no systemic symptoms, such as headaches, sore

throats or fever, and that the rash wasn't permanent.

" That's the good news, " he said. " The bad news is we still don't know what

it is. "

Jahre said the students were not seriously ill.

" The children are well, " he said. " We're not dealing with an illness that's

a threat to life or limb. "

Scanlon said the latest cases include a middle-school student who is the

sibling of a Richland Elementary student.

Sherry Borbely, whose daughter, Chelsea Desmond, 11, was one of the original

54 Richland children sent to St. Luke's with the rash last Thursday, said

the outbreak in a second elementary school had raised her concerns.

" I've started to get nervous now because it's spreading to another

elementary school. . . . Anthrax has crossed my mind, even more now because

it's spreading to other facilities. "

Her daughter, a fifth-grader, said the rash was red and itchy and under her

chin, on her chest and on her hands.

" I was kind of scared to go to school because I didn't know if I would get

it again. . . . I had the rash so I went home. I'd rather be in a different

school than get the rash again. "

Robbins' daughter, , 6, came home from kindergarten Thursday

with the rash. did not go to school on Friday.

" I'm pleased they closed the school and are taking it more seriously, "

Robbins said. " At the beginning, they didn't know what they were dealing

with. . . . I don't want to let her out of my sight. If it's not safe at

school, where is it safe? "

Jahre said he has been in contact with the federal Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention in Atlanta but officials said the agency hasn't been

called into the investigation.

Langhorne-based ENSR International, an environmental-testing firm, has been

brought in by the district to check everything from wood that a Richland

student used in a science project to air and carpet samples.

In New York, 40 students and seven staff members at Public School 161 in

Queens were sent home Tuesday after complaining of rashes and itchy skin. In

Fairfax, Va., an itchy, red rash affected hundreds of students at a Prince

County middle school. The last new case there was reported Dec. 10,

and students kept home at the height of the illness have returned.

Marc Schogol's e-mail address is mschogol@....

This article contains information from the Washington Post.