An eleven year old was removed from his Middle School because he carries the genetic mutations for cystic fibrosis. This isn’t being done to protect his health, but rather, the health of other students who have cystic fibrosis. There are other options that the school board could have taken before removing the boy from his school.
This is a strange story. An eleven year old boy was attending Jordan Middle School in Palo Alto, California. He carries the genetic mutations for cystic fibrosis. However, he doesn’t actually have the disease. He is healthy, and has none of the symptoms that one would associate with cystic fibrosis.
The boy’s parents decided to let the school know about this “out of an abundance of caution”. They wrote it down on a school medical disclosure form when their son started attending Jordan Middle School. The parents probably never imagined that their honesty would end up causing problems for their son.
Colman carries the genetic mutations for cystic fibrosis. The disease itself is not contagious. He can’t cough or sneeze on a classmate and end up causing them to develop the disease.
However, the mutations he carries can be dangerous to students (and other people) who have cystic fibrosis. It has to do with some kind of bacteria he carries and the fact that kids with cystic fibrosis can catch a cold or other illness very quickly. It has been said that people who carry the bacteria associated with the genetic mutations for cystic fibrosis that Colman has should stay three to six feet away from people who have cystic fibrosis, even if those people are siblings.
Somehow, the information on Colman’s medical history disclosure form got shared with another parent. That parent has two children who attend Jordan Middle School, and each of them have classic cystic fibrosis. They both are predisposed to chronic lung infections.
The result was that the school district chose to remove Colman from Jordan Middle School. This means Colman is changing Middle Schools seven weeks into the school year. That has to be tough for a child that age! His new middle school is in another district and is located 3 miles away from Jordan Middle School.
The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has standard protocols that can help situations where multiple children with classic cystic fibrosis attend the same school. It involves disinfecting, wiping desks, and washing hands. Perhaps this could have been tried before kicking a kid who is healthy, but who happens to carry the genetic mutations for cystic fibrosis, out of the school he was attending.
Image by Elizabeth/Table4Five on Flickr