A Texas School is receiving national attention for its sunscreen ban, lumping the product in with other over-the-counter drugs and forbidding students to carry it. The school, part of the North East Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas, has banned product, considering it a toxic substance and treating like a medicine that a child would need a note to have while at school.
The ban came to public attention when the daughter of Christy Riggs returned from a school field trip with sunburn. (Under the current district rules, students are also forbidden to bring sunscreen on field trips, whether indoors or out.) Said Riggs, according to Yahoo! News:
“Our family has very pale skin, and my father actually passed away from skin cancer earlier this year. What sort of message is the school sending when they tell us to leave sunscreen at home?”
Yahoo! News also states that School district spokeswoman Aubrey Chancellor said the risk of allergic reaction is one of the many reasons the district does not allow sunscreen in any of its 72 schools.
“We don’t want students sharing sunscreen,” Chancellor said, according to the article. “If students get it in their eyes or react badly to the sunscreen it can be quite serious.”
The ban on sunscreen in schools has been around for a while, USA Today reporting on the issue in 2012. It is also not the first time sunscreen has been a product safety headline. In 2013, Banana Boat has several sunscreen sprays recalled due to fire hazard.
