This happens a lot in schools around the country and the cause is never determined.

They should have a rasher of bacon to go with that.

It's lupus.

Children are walking plague-factories.

News at 11.

The precautions make it sound like some kind of alien virus.

Diogenes: It's lupus.

That sounds rather expensive to have an inconclusive result.

Isn't that a good reason to test teachers for STDs like they do for pornstars?

Walker: This happens a lot in schools around the country and the cause is never determined.

Because some joker brings in a bit of poison ivy or oak or both and swabs door handles and what not with it, when non one's looking? Cloth with the oil in it will work. You can soak cotton gloves in it and put them on over latex gloves.
Spread it and dispose of the seeder device.

lockers: Isn't that a good reason to test teachers for STDs like they do for pornstars?

Is there a special way to test someone for an STD if they're a porn-star? Why not do it the same as for everyone else?

Let us check the list.
Adolescent age group
Sudden simultaneous outbreak
Phantom symptomatology
Spontaneous recovery
Unknown Cause.

Oh, my friend you got it! And you have a good case of it!
Not Industrial Disease, but Mass Hysteria.

It is one of my favorites! Ties in with placebo effects all the way to religeousis miracles.
Absolutely fascinating.

snocone: Let us check the list.
Adolescent age group
Sudden simultaneous outbreak
Phantom symptomatology
Spontaneous recovery
Unknown Cause.

You're right! It must be a witch! Round up any creepy looking old women, or just any women you don't like.

WE'RE HAVIN' A BURNIN'!!

It's all the hand sanitizer,it's probably contaminated with something, if it isn't just the damn stuff drying your skin out very badly.

One kid gets a rash, other kids start using the hand sanitizer more, drying out their skin, and boom, rashes.

I May Be Crazy But...: lockers: Isn't that a good reason to test teachers for STDs like they do for pornstars?

Is there a special way to test someone for an STD if they're a porn-star? Why not do it the same as for everyone else?

It's not how, it's how frequent.

"Mass casualty response because of the number of people involved". Five people is alot? Police escort?
Wow, how frightening!
My eyes are itchy after reading this story. I wonder if there's a connection?

poodebunker: "Mass casualty response because of the number of people involved"

Depending on how many resources and ambulances somewhere has, a single car wreck with three victims can be considered a mass casualty response.

Since they thought HAZMAT, it became a mass casualty response because every individual person has to be triaged, decontaminated, and medically evaluated before being allowed to leave scene, or it's proven not to be chemical or biological.

Probably a combination of the stress of the school environment along with an allergy to something to school is using as a cleaner (maybe a desk cleaner). Poison ivy was also a good guess, especially if a student in the previous class had it and was scratching/touching everything. I also wonder if the school has a mold issue, as once again, extremely common in schools.

At least this response could serve as a nice training exercise. I hope the school's insurance covered this, and no parents got stuck with medical bills for a rash on the hands.

Hope no one makes a rash decision.

It's never lupus.

If you're over 40 it's probably shingles.

BronyMedic: poodebunker: "Mass casualty response because of the number of people involved"

Depending on how many resources and ambulances somewhere has, a single car wreck with three victims can be considered a mass casualty response.

Since they thought HAZMAT, it became a mass casualty response because every individual person has to be triaged, decontaminated, and medically evaluated before being allowed to leave scene, or it's proven not to be chemical or biological.

Makes sense now.

"Our plague is a rash"

"That's the worse kind"

Hand/foot and mouth disease. Always reported in Asia, never in the US.

This is what happens when you don't vaccinate your children for cooties. -_-

Walker: This happens a lot in schools around the country and the cause is never determined.

hmm. I was going to go with phototoxic plant sap, but you wouldn't see that in February in Indiana. Almost all the plants would be dead or dormant.

Middle school: That awkward place where your parents stop making you take baths and you have to do it yourself.

walkerhound: Hand/foot and mouth disease. Always reported in Asia, never in the US.

That's pretty much exactly what I was thinking...there IS a Chinese strain of hand-foot-and-mouth that's been going around in the US this year that apparently is new enough that it's been infecting teens and adults.

I do speak from experience, having contracted this particular nasty two weeks ago which then went into a sinus crud--first crud I've had in YEARS that didn't go for the lungs at all. Pretty much THE first symptoms are your hands and feet breaking out in hives and itching like the devil himself, then the sore throat and fever and general blerginess kicks in. And often in adults, they don't get the fever.

Shocked the hell out of me when the doc noted this, but he also noted he'd seen cases of it in adults even the week before O_o...so it could be the Chinese Crud, just sayin'.

Great Porn Dragon: walkerhound: Hand/foot and mouth disease. Always reported in Asia, never in the US.

That's pretty much exactly what I was thinking...there IS a Chinese strain of hand-foot-and-mouth that's been going around in the US this year that apparently is new enough that it's been infecting teens and adults.

I do speak from experience, having contracted this particular nasty two weeks ago which then went into a sinus crud--first crud I've had in YEARS that didn't go for the lungs at all. Pretty much THE first symptoms are your hands and feet breaking out in hives and itching like the devil himself, then the sore throat and fever and general blerginess kicks in. And often in adults, they don't get the fever.

Shocked the hell out of me when the doc noted this, but he also noted he'd seen cases of it in adults even the week before O_o...so it could be the Chinese Crud, just sayin'.

And as an addendum:

Pretty much the reason I was a bit gobsmacked at the doc's diagnosis (finally came crawling in when I had been doing my best Flutterguy impersonation involuntarily for the past two days) is because--well, outside from the Chinese Crud, anyways--hand, foot and mouth disease is typically something kids get in daycare or, at most, in kindergarten. O_o

Apparently there's been some very nasty strains of it going around in East Asia, though (which is why you're always hearing about outbreaks in China and such), and at least by November 2011 one of the Chinese strains of coxsackievirus (the virus that causes HF&M disease) made it to California--and it's been spreading like wildfire since.

For a few examples: Here's an advisory (warning: PDF) on the Chinese Crud--as I not-so-affectionately refer to this strain of HF&M. Reed College put out advisories on it in April, it was apparently rife in Alabama around Christmas, and schools in New York note to parents to please not bring their little plaguebearers to school when actively infectious.

Oh, and the fun thing--adults don't always get the ulcers in the throat or even the sore throat from hell (let's just say that Cepacol and Calagel were my bestest friends in the whole world with that plague :P)...

Walker: This happens a lot in schools around the country and the cause is never determined.

It's Axe body spray. I swear that's Saddam's WMD. We never found it because it was sitting right out in the open, next to the Burma Shave.

I don't recall a rash of rashes in my middle school, only a rash of hairy palms, and/or blindness.