While police don hazardous materials suits and protective masks to enter houses where methamphetamine has been cooked, children removed from those homes often are tucked into caseworkers' cars and driven away in their contaminated clothing, says the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The scene repeated itself dozens of times last year in Jefferson County, Mo., near St. Louis, where juvenile officers removed 68 children from homes after meth lab busts.
A group called the Meth Action Coalition hopes to reduce the chances of cross-contamination among children who ride in those car seats. They have been raising money to pay for vinyl car seat covers to prevent the spread of contamination among children removed from hazardous conditions. "Ideally, we would like to have a change of clothes for them at the scene," said the coalition's Jean Freeman. "But it's traumatic enough for them to have to leave their home, let alone have to strip them down at the scene."
