Schools doing medical testing on children

Here's the story: My perfectly healthy nine year daughter informed me today that the school system wants to take blood and urine samples from her so that they can do medical test for things such as childhood diabetes, nitrate levels, etc... She was worried that they were trying to steal her DNA. Of course, I'm not really concerned about them stealing her DNA, however, I do have many questions concerning the reasoning behind it.

I understand that some medical issues such as lice, chicken pox, and other diseases and things that can be spread between children are of concern to school systems, but our schools are there to educate our children not to diagnose medical issues. Aren't the medical concerns of a child to be controlled by the parents and the child's doctor?

Where is the line of concern for the school system? Should they be doing these types of test on our children? What types of future testing can these things lead to?

I would be very interested to hear other peoples comments and concerns on the subject? Has anyone else come across these issues?

Wow! That's messed up! What did you sign that gave the school permission to do this? Also, did it give them authority to treat your child and make the decisions without you?

They sent home a permission slip to do the testing, but we refused to sign it until they gave us reasons why these test were being done. The weird part is that they don't seem to be testing ALL the children. We are thinking from what little information we have that they are targeting children that take advantage of the free lunch programs, but we aren't sure of that until we get more information.

Every fiber of my being is screaming "Don't do it.!" Do not let that school take blood ad urine samples from your child, without knowing very well just what they are for. And the suspicion that they are doing it to kids who get free lunch is outrageous. Even though it is just a suspicion, that is still enough for me to bring hell onto the heads of those "educators," if it was my child. Burn the permission slip, and try to convince others to do the same. Schools have no justification to be doing *bleep* like this.

reply to post by isyeye


Which country is this in? Thanks

reply to post by TheMindWar


Sadly...In the USA...The place that was once the land of freedom.

reply to post by isyeye


I've not heard of this in particular, But I've heard of something similar involving drug testing in some schools. It may or may not be related. I found this website from the NIDA answering some FAQs on the issue of drug testing, Just for added info. drugabuse.gov... Heres an interesting excerpt from it too:

Is random drug testing of students legal? In June 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court broadened the authority of public schools to test students for illegal drugs. Voting 5 to 4 in Pottawatomie County v. Earls, the court ruled to allow random drug tests for all middle and high school students participating in competitive extracurricular activities. The ruling greatly expanded the scope of school drug testing, which previously had been allowed only for student athletes.

Again, I'm not sure if it is related. I'm curious to know what your daughter's school responds with (if they respond at all). If it IS drug testing, then I'd still be left wondering why they are not asking for more samples from more students.. Guess you will have to keep us posted, yes?

EDIT: I just re-read you post, and seen that the school said it was for medical testing. I smell Fish... Lots of rotting fish... I'll have to look into this. Thanks for the post, and do keep us updated! I'll reply if I find anything else relevant.

reply to post by Inquisitive1


From what I've been able to find out so far, it doesn't appear to be any type of drug testing program. For one, my daughter is nine and wouldn't have anything to do with any type of drugs. One question I have regarding this in light of drug testing in schools, is if this is something that schools will begin doing to our children so that later on when schools want blood or urine sample to do drug testing (like many schools are doing to school athletes), the kids don't question what the schools are doing.....the kids are already use to peeing in a cup.

reply to post by isyeye


You daughter is smart enough to know about what DNA is and what it means when blood is taken, I say trust her fears and have the test done by your daughter's doctor or your primary doctor and ask him or her if this test are necessary and OK, in my opinion I will not trust any other entity but my personal or children's doctor to be taking blood from me or my children, specially in schools when you don't know the truth behind the testing.

This new mandate, is obviously coming from the Federal Government level. Local States don't have that in their budgets, they can't, for the most part, even afford to continue with art and music classes. I have a friend who has been an art teacher for 18 years in middle school, she is looking at her department being closed, due to budget strains.

So, that leaves me wondering, who on the Fed level instigated this new invasion of privacy, and most of all...why?

This is mass collection of data, for some program, that I'm sure we the people didn't approve. Why is the government amassing this data, and for what use. As a parent, it is your choice to have any MEDICAL procedure done to your children. And yes, this is a MEDICAL procedure.

Sure as hell doesn't fit in with the criteria of normal school attendance, does it.....

reply to post by isyeye


That idea scares me, too. I've had a little run on the internet trying to find out why any school would take blood and urine samples for something other than drug testing, and found nothing. All my results related to drug testing or medical tests on young kids the does not involve school at all. Of course that doesn't mean much, just my inability to find anything. I'll keep looking.

As a side note: I can't help but greatly dislike sample testing in schools period. I don't care if they attach the idea of drug abuse prevention to it or not. Sample testing is just going to tell you which kids have done what drugs, Which kids have or may have this or that disease, Which kids doesn't drink enough water, and which kids don't like needles.

None of that information is something that can actually help prevent anything (With the exception of telling Timmy to drink some water, Or Susan's parents to take her to a doctor). Drug prevention should start at educating parents and kids, Not about finding out information that can only be used to discriminate and profile.. Just my opinion on it, though.. So I digress..

reply to post by Destinyone


I agree, usually it have some big corporation money behind the testing as usual in the name of federal grant for the project, the collecting of DNA in the US has been in full gear but due to our privacy laws they can not come out with a law to force individuals to give away blood so some private corporation can do the collection for a data base, so they are coming out with all kind of "ideas" to collect as much DNA as they can, what else but doing it in school children's as they can not do it from willing adults.

I will be interested on the company behind the collection in the school or for whom the medical workers doing the testing pay checks comes from.

This could be a good way to find out who is truly behind the testing and exposed.

If you want to know what the blueprint is, read "The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing And The Psychology Of Genocide" by Robert Jay Lifton.

No possible way will I ever agree to this, I have been shouting at the rooftops about the school lunch programs in the US as of late and from a host of positions but this , this takes the cake my friend.

Stand strong and as Marge said follow your own intuition when it come to your child.

best of luck and thanks for the heads up!

I think you're in the ballpark with your "free-lunch" census data idea.

Medical data for children's health, taking from the one group that certainly eats school food; those who are marked free-lunch.

Though, both urine and blood. That is a little bizarre, so who knows. What is most bizarre, is they didn't explain to you in detail what it was for in the first place, and just gave you a permission slip saying, "Permission for medical stuff and such".

Blood sampling isn't exactly a 'routine' thing.

Originally posted by isyeye
reply to post by TheMindWar

 

Sadly...In the USA...The place that was once the land of freedom.

I too live in the USA and have yet to hear this. I don't agree with any of it, and I don't think it is there place to do this, this is why we have doctors. That's really fishy, and if they sent home a permission slip stating this, i don't care what the reason, i still say no get away from my kids. it's bad enough they try to get parents to vaccinate their kids through the school, which i think should still belong in a health clinic only. I am also against vaccinating in grocery stores too!!

With the vaccinations they are not allowed to give them those without parental permission in this state, and the day they do i won't be sending my kids to school, if they still insist i will most definitely home school. I feel they are really crossing the lines here, and i don't like it one bit!!

We've contacted the school and requested more information, but the only thing that we have been told so far is that this is a "physical". According to my daughter, as far a she knows, she was the only child in her classroom that this has been requested from. The teacher specifically ask her if she recieved the paperwork on her desk, so this wasn't something that was being done for the entire classroom. One thing that someone pointed out to us is that she is the only child in her classroom that is part of the schools "gifted and talented" or "gt" program....Why a physical would be required for this I would have no idea, but she does not play any sort of school sport, so a physical would not be required because of that...It makes me rather suspicious....My stand point is that if she needs a "physical", her doctor, that she has been going to since birth, will be the one that does it.

Originally posted by marg6043
reply to post by Destinyone

 

I agree, usually it have some big corporation money behind the testing as usual in the name of federal grant for the project, the collecting of DNA in the US has been in full gear but due to our privacy laws they can not come out with a law to force individuals to give away blood so some private corporation can do the collection for a data base, so they are coming out with all kind of "ideas" to collect as much DNA as they can, what else but doing it in school children's as they can not do it from willing adults.

I will be interested on the company behind the collection in the school or for whom the medical workers doing the testing pay checks comes from.

This could be a good way to find out who is truly behind the testing and exposed.

Maybe some big Pharma co. Looking to market a new drug for kids. Or, a Fed agency using the data to adjust free school lunch programs to spend less money...either way, it's our tax dollars funding this research...did anyone ask you if you approved of this new mandate...they didn't ask me that's for sure.

Plus, this is highly invasive imo. It's one thing to take a swab from a child's mouth....totally another to draw blood and urine. This is falls under the guidelines of military practice...not a freaking grade school.

Originally posted by isyeye
We've contacted the school and requested more information, but the only thing that we have been told so far is that this is a "physical". According to my daughter, as far a she knows, she was the only child in her classroom that this has been requested from. The teacher specifically ask her if she recieved the paperwork on her desk, so this wasn't something that was being done for the entire classroom. One thing that someone pointed out to us is that she is the only child in her classroom that is part of the schools "gifted and talented" or "gt" program....Why a physical would be required for this I would have no idea, but she does not play any sort of school sport, so a physical would not be required because of that...It makes me rather suspicious....My stand point is that if she needs a "physical", her doctor, that she has been going to since birth, will be the one that does it.

If I were you I would go to the school and ask for the permission slip, and if they handed it to me I would rip it up in front them and tell them to go to hell, trust me I have done it before, with other issues. Just because they educate your child doesn't mean you have to sit back and let them coerce you into doing something you are against. Then I would go to the school board and demand what is really go on. This is your child and take a stand!! Don't let the schools push you around, you more rights than you think!!

reply to post by isyeye


When I was a Spanish teacher for the School system back in 2003 here in my neck of the woods in GA I was working with the gifted program I never encounter anything like this around here, I know of other testing but no blood or stool samples, still the testing before school is always done by the health department and on the parents time as long as is done before the school year.

I am sorry to say that whatever is going on with your child in her school is not normal.