BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Research Center S.B. 221
Education
AUTHOR'S/SPONSOR'S STATEMENT OF INTENT
Current law allows students to carry and use asthma inhalers but not anaphylaxis medication to treat allergic reactions. Anaphylaxis medication is medication for severe allergic reactions, which cause the suffering and death of schoolchildren each year. Approximately 100 Americans, usually children, die annually from food-induced allergic reactions. People also die every year from allergic reactions to latex and insect stings. In October, President Bush signed HR 2023, the Asthmatic Schoolchildren's Treatment and Health Management Act of 2004. This federal legislation gives funding preference to states that protect students' rights to carry and self-administer life saving asthma and/or anaphylaxis medication at school.
As proposed, S.B. 221 allows a student to self-administer prescription anaphylaxis medicine in addition to the asthma medicine allowed already. The permission pertains to times when a student is on school property or at a school-related event. The permission extends only to self-administration of the medication in compliance with the student's prescription. This legislation also requires the student's parents to provide the school with parental authorization for the student to self-administer the medication; and a signed statement by a physician or other licensed health care provider including a statement that the student has asthma or anaphylaxis, a statement that the student is capable of self-administering the prescribed medicine, the name, purpose, dosage, instructions for administration, and the period for which the medicine is prescribed.
RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS
SECTION 1. Amends the heading to Section 38.015, Education Code, to read as follows:
Sec. 38.015. SELF-ADMINISTRATION OF PRESCRIPTION ASTHMA OR ANAPHYLAXIS MEDICINE BY STUDENTS.
SECTION 2. Amends Sections 38.015(a) and (b), Education Code, to make conforming and nonsubstantive changes.
SECTION 3. Effective date: upon passage or September 1, 2005.