Parenting Project: Dean donates EpiPens to Madison schools

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By Dani Maxwell - email

MADISON (WKOW) -- Madison children with allergies are safer at school thanks to a local healthcare provider.

Dean Clinic recently provided EpiPens to every school in the Madison Metropolitan School District, and that has parents a little less worried when they send their children off to school.

Dr. Don Bukstein, a pediatric allergist with Dean, says these will be invaluable when you talk about saving kids' lives. "When you ingest food and you begin to have an allergic reaction, EpiPen is the only thing that reverses that reaction sufficiently," Dr. Bukstein says.

Recently, there has been more of a need for EpiPens. Dr. Bukstein says he used to see one or two people a month with food allergies. Now it's more like one or two a week. "And with this massive increase in food allergies, comes along food reactions which are oftentimes anaphylactic, which means severe, total body kind of responses to these foods," Dr. Bukstein says.

Dr. Bukstein says nurses from Dean Clinic train school administrators and nurses how to use the EpiPens. While some kids with severe allergies will have their own EpiPen with them, this is a life-saving back up.

"Schools have had an increased recognition that they have to provide a safe environment but also that they're ready to respond to specific emergency-type situations." Dr. Bukstein says.