School Asthma Policies Can Save Lives

Asthma attacks make breathing difficult, but avoiding triggers and properly using medication can reduce asthma symptoms and save lives. CDC′s National Asthma Control Program supports laws allowing children to carry medication at school.

Just ten years ago, children in many states were not allowed to carry their own emergency medication for asthma or allergic reactions in school, on school property, or on a school bus. But thanks to the work of asthma advocacy organizations, by 2010, every state had passed laws permitting “self-carry” for asthma medication, and all but three states had passed similar laws for medication for other life–threatening conditions, such as severe allergic reactions. Rhonda Mitchell, a Georgia mother who lost her son to asthma, worked closely with a CDC partner, the American Lung Association, to advocate for self–carry laws in Georgia.

Tragedy proves need for self-carry policies in schools

Just as the last bell rang at his new elementary school in January 2001, 10–year–old Kellen Bolden, Mitchell′s son, had an asthma attack. He did not have permission to carry his inhaler, nor was he familiar with the layout of the school, so he went straight to the school bus. Kellen collapsed as he was boarding the bus and was rushed to the hospital, but, tragically, it was too late. At 3:10 pm, about the same time he would have arrived home from school, he was pronounced dead. Mitchell says, “That was the worst day of my life.”