Students, Faculty Thought to Have Gotten Mystery Rash from Toilet

A chemical solution used to clean the toilets at Birmingham’s Pierce Elementary may have caused a chemical burn, school and health officials said. (Screenshot via WDIV-TV)

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Oakland County health officials aren’t 100 percent sure what to make of a mystery rash a dozen Pierce Elementary students and faculty members developed last week, but think they may have sustained chemical burns from sitting on the school’s toilets.

Authorities have ruled out measles or a virus as the cause of the rash at the Birmingham school, WDIV-TV reports, and also say it’s not allergy-related because the rash doesn’t respond to topical ointments like Benadryl.

Among those who developed the symptoms was an 11-year-old whose mom said was in pain for two days.

“She said it hurt to sit down, and she had a little blister on her bottom,” Rebecca Tweddle, said. “She was in pain. It was sad and upsetting.”

The rash showed up on the backs of legs, buttocks and lower backs, areas that would come in contact with toilets freshly cleaned with an institutional-strength solution used by schools, hospitals and other public places.

The theory now is that students and faculty suffered chemical burns. The janitorial staff reportedly said the product had been diluted according to package directions, but it has been pulled from the cleaning supplies inventory.

Birmingham Public Schools Superintendent Dan Nerad said the situation has been unnerving. and officials won’t rest until they’ve determined what happened.

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Nerad said officials can’t rule out a prank or more sinister like chemical vandalism, though he thinks that’s unlikely. The product is being analzyed.

“To see this kind of reaction in light of that is very concerning,” Nerad said. “We’re not going to rest until we know that we’ve looked at every option to try to figure out what happened here,” he said.

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