England Works to Mandate Epinephrine in Every School While Survival in the US Depends on Your Child’s Zip Code

A landmark piece of legislation, “Benedict’s Law,” has officially reached the House of Lords, marking a pivotal moment in the fight to require stock epinephrine auto-injectors in every school across England. The bill follows years of tireless campaigning by the family of five-year-old Benedict Blythe, who tragically died in 2021 after an anaphylactic reaction at his school in Peterborough. His mother, Helen Blythe, has become the face of the movement, asserting that her son’s death was preventable and that no other family should endure such a loss.

The proposed law aims to address a “glaring lack of consistency” in how UK schools manage life-threatening allergies. Specifically, it would require every educational institution to maintain a supply of stock epinephrine auto-injectors, implement a standardized allergy management policy, and provide mandatory staff training. “Benedict’s life mattered. His death must matter too,” Helen Blythe said outside Peterborough Town Hall, emphasizing that current “patchy, vague guidance” leaves schools to bear life-or-death responsibility alone.

While England moves toward a national mandate, the United States remains a patchwork of inconsistent regulations that often leave students at risk. Unlike the proposed British law, there is no federal mandate in the US requiring schools to maintain stock epinephrine. Instead, the US relies on the “School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act” of 2013, which merely incentivizes states to pass their own laws. This has resulted in “zip code bingo” for American parents, in which a child’s safety depends entirely on the state or municipality in which they live.

In the US, while nearly all 50 states have laws regarding stock epinephrine, only a small fraction require schools to carry it. According to research from the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, most states only “permit” schools to stock epinephrine, meaning individual districts or even individual principals can choose not to carry the life-saving devices because of cost or liability concerns. In contrast, Benedict’s Law aims to remove this element of choice in England, ensuring that an auto-injector is always available when every second counts.

The financial argument for a national mandate is also gaining traction in the UK, with recent studies showing that a centralized supply would actually be cheaper than the current system. Researchers found that providing stock auto-injectors to every school in England would cost roughly £4.5 million ($6 million), while the current practice of prescribing multiple “named” auto-injectors for students to leave at school costs the NHS over £9 million ($12 million). This data challenges the common US excuse that mandating stock auto-injectors is a prohibitive expense for underfunded school districts.

Advocates argue that a mandate is essential because roughly 20% to 25% of anaphylactic reactions in schools occur in children who have no prior diagnosis of an allergy. These students do not have their own prescribed epinephrine, making the availability of a “school supply” their only hope for survival. As MP Chris Bloor noted during the bill’s introduction, “Safety should not depend on a child’s location or their family’s income.”

As Benedict’s Law progresses through the House of Lords, it stands as a challenge to the United States to modernize its safety standards. While American schools have made strides in allowing students to self-carry their own medication, the lack of a universal requirement for backup supplies remains a critical gap. England is on the verge of ensuring that “no more children should die at school because of an allergy,” a standard of care that remains an unfulfilled promise in many American classrooms.