Keith students shared needle in science class
By Steve Urbon, Standard-Times senior correspondent
NEW BEDFORD -- New Bedford school officials mailed certified letters to the families of 97 Keith Junior High School students yesterday, recommending that they have their children's blood tested for HIV and hepatitis.
They acted after learning that a veteran junior high school science teacher had about two dozen of his students draw blood samples with a single lancet in May 2001.
Attorney Walter R. Smith, representing the School Committee, said that a medical expert viewed the potential for disease transmission at this stage to be minuscule, but that the city will pay for the blood tests as a precaution.
No sanction against the teacher, who retired last summer, is being contemplated, he said.
The students were in four sections of veteran teacher and football coach Kevin D. Cadieux's 2000-01 seventh-grade science class at Keith, Mr. Smith said. Mr. Cadieux is a diabetic who carried with him a lancet device, described as a pen with a coil mechanism with a very thin, disposable needle in the end. The needle portion is designed to be thrown away after a single use.
In class, he loaded a new needle and asked for volunteers. About 24 children used the instrument to draw blood for microscope slides, wiping the needle with alcohol between uses, Mr. Smith said.
"We have learned that it was the first time this happened and it has not happened before or since," Mr. Smith said.
"This sort of thing was not uncommon 30 or 40 years ago, drawing blood and then looking at it on a slide, but it is not something the School Committee today would condone, recommend, allow, permit or sanction," he added.
However, one former Keith student, Aaron Green, said Mr. Cadieux attempted the same experiment in his class the year before, but the students refused to cooperate and the teacher sampled his own blood for the microscope slides.
Mr. Smith said that a year later, one of Mr. Cadieux's 2000-01 students viewed an anti-drug video in a health class, and it included warnings about sharing needles. He remembered the experiment, and in early June informed his teacher, who relayed the news to Principal Steven DeRossi, who alerted the school administration.
School officials offered no explanation yesterday about the delay in acting on the information.
The School Committee apparently discussed the incident for the first time in executive session Monday evening. Mr. Smith said Mr. Cadieux had declined an invitation to attend. Mr. Cadieux's attorney, Walter P. Faria of New Bedford, said Mr. Cadieux had not been invited.
Mr. Cadieux, who retired at the end of the 2001 school year and lives in Westport, could not be reached for comment. His son, Kevin Jr., who lives in Fairhaven, said that no one in the family would comment. Mr. Faria said he advised Mr. Cadieux to remain silent on the matter. He did not offer a reason for Mr. Cadieux's judgment, and he said he believed no crime was committed.
In the letter to parents, Dr. Ronald F. Sousa, assistant superintendent for secondary education, wrote: "It has recently come to our attention that several students may have participated in an experiment in their seventh-grade science class in May 2001. The experiment involved the drawing of blood via a blood sugar testing machine in a manner that may have been inconsistent with its intended use.
"The School Department has consulted with a local physician specializing in internal medicine and infectious diseases. He has advised that the risk of transmission of any infection is negligible, and we are not aware of any illness resulting from this incident."
The physician, Dr. Hanumara Chowdri, an infectious-disease specialist at St. Luke's Hospital in New Bedford, said he had not met Mr. Cadieux, but based on what he was told by school officials, the children were at little risk. "He should not have done it," he said, "but based on the fact that he first changed the needle and that he washed it in alcohol, I felt the risk of transmission was minimal."
Children attending public school are required to be vaccinated against hepatitis B, he said, and HIV is quickly killed by alcohol. Blood testing today would also include a check for hepatitis C.
The families were told that they should contact their physician for testing, or the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center at 874 Purchase St. For payment, they were advised to contact the school business office.
Dr. Sousa said that although Mr. Smith handles all media contacts, he will speak directly to families who contact him. Dr. Chowdri said he also will be available to consult with families once they have received the test results.
While minimizing the risk, the doctor expressed amazement at what happened in the classroom.
"It's mind-boggling from a medical point of view and from a common-sense point of view," he said. "I can't imagine that someone would do this."
He said he is sure the teacher had no bad intentions. "It's just being stupid, that's all I can think of."
Dr. Chowdri offered an assurance: He said that in his practice, he sees many people who have accidentally been stuck by hypodermic needles in much more risky circumstances, but has never seen one result in a transmitted disease. The fact that the school incident was not with a hollow needle, and occurred a year ago in a low-risk population of 11-year-olds is reason to think that it is highly unlikely that any illness will result. If it does, he said, state officials will be notified.
State Department of Health spokeswoman Roseanne Pawelec said, "The School Department is certainly handling this appropriately. There is no need for the state Department of Health to become involved.
"The risk is certainly low and we would not expect any of these children to test positive. Certainly because a whole year has passed since this happened, negative test results should go a long way to assure parents who have concerns," she said.
Several Keith students contacted yesterday said they had Mr. Cadieux's science class in other years, but there was no blood drawn. Roshauna DeBarros, a Standard-Times intern, said that in 1993 the class dissected frogs, but never dealt with blood.
Conrad Hickock, now 15, son of UMass Dartmouth spokeswoman Maeve Hickock, took Mr. Cadieux's science class several years ago but reported no blood sampling.
Her reaction to the news was that she found it "astonishing, especially in a science class where there's scientific knowledge of health and what's going on in the world regarding health and blood. The best thing I can say is that it was an astonishing lapse of judgment."
Aaron Green, who said Mr. Cadieux failed to coax his classmates into pricking their own fingers, said, "He had this puncher thing. Nobody wanted to do it, so he took his own blood and let all of us look at it.
"He tried to ask us to do it, and he explained that he had this bottle of alcohol ready to wash the needle, but we still didn't want to do it," he said.
"We thought it was nasty."
This story appeared on Page A1 of The Standard-Times on July 10, 2002.
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