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Monday, October 27, 2014

A Letter To The Editor: Pemberton Elementary School & Health Concerns

Hello, I was wondering if you have looked into (or could look into) the recent outbreak of who-knows-what at Pemberton Elementary School in Salisbury. Three kindergartners from one class were sent to the hospital with fevers and respiratory problems on Wednesday - awfully reminiscent of Enterovirus D68, which has already killed at least eight children. The Wicomico Health Department has announced that it will not be testing these kids for the potentially deadly virus, citing some "inconsistency of symptoms" BS. 

Personally, I find three kids having breathing trouble to be alarmingly consistent and as a parent, I'm very concerned. If this virus is circulating in our schools, parents have a right to know and to take precautions as they see fit. There seems to be a media blackout on this throughout the state, as Maryland officials have been more than happy to appease the administration by not testing for EV-D68, thereby keeping the number of confirmed cases down and maintaining their plausible deniability. 

There needs to be transparency and Maryland parents deserve accurate information. Having read your blog, I thought you might take an interest in shedding some light on an issue about which local and state bureaucrats are keeping parents in the dark and our children at risk.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maryland has welcomed the illegals flooding our borders, and it is a known fact that many of them are bringing diseases like drug-resistant TB with them.
The E68 virus infection rate has exploded in the past year.
What a coincidence.

Anonymous said...

If it is EV-D68 the Democrats don't want you to know it. Obama let these sick people in the Country and O'Malley helped him spread them around by accepting them in Maryland.

Anonymous said...

Why do you need the health dept to run the test? As a parent, if I had one of the children that were sick, I would have my ped run the test.

Anonymous said...

Take your child to the Doctor if you are so concerned.

Paladin said...

The school has a letter on its website that details their steps in this situation. School officials have an obligation to the public but they are unable to divulge any specifics on their students to the public. To this end, the health department is bound by those same rules.

Paladin

Anonymous said...

There's definitely some kind of crud floating around. But they're not going to close a school for enterovirus, so there's no point in testing for it. Just keep feeding your kids healthy food, giving them quality, supplemental vitamins, and make sure they stay rested. If they happen to catch it, they'll have a good shot at it just being a few days of misery and inconvenience.

Anonymous said...

Get a life mom...the school and BOE did their due diligence. Bet you kept you kids home without cause. Maybe you should be turned in to DSS for neglect!

Stacy said...

5:13 - I hope you don't work for the BOE or DSS. Keeping a child home out of fear for their health/safety IS cause. Now, if a parent keeps a kid home w/o taking them to the doctor and just complains, that's different. But this just happened.

I worked at MMHS during a "gun scare". I came in to parents standing from the office out into the hallway. After finding out what was going on, I told parents that if they were concerned for their child's safety, I would call the student down. I let them know my children were there and I felt comfortable leaving them in class; however, I respected the parent's decision. After talking to their kids, some parents signed their kids out and other parents sent their kids back to class.

It is no one's business except the parent's if they feel it is unsafe for their child to remain in a school - especially when the school sent kids to the hospital.

As mentioned, the virus that has the symptoms shown has paralyzed and killed children that age.