Meningitis Vax for college?

[Anglyn]

Pros and Cons? My oldest is graduating, in Texas you have to have the meningitis vax for college. I haven't researched this one. Anyone have any ideas/comments/suggestions/anything?

[Emmeline II]

Originally Posted by Anglyn

Pros and Cons? My oldest is graduating, in Texas you have to have the meningitis vax for college. I haven't researched this one. Anyone have any ideas/comments/suggestions/anything?

My dh and I go to college in Texas; the state does not require any vaccinations for college, though the Board of Health may change that requirement. The institution may require it now, but you can use an exemption.

Meningitis doesn't magically target college students. The reasoning for the vax is that close quarters, poor diet, and little rest makes them more vulnerable; colleges originally only required this vax for dorm residents.

Meningitis is an inflammation of the membranes (meninges) and cerebrospinal fluid surrounding your brain and spinal cord, usually due to the spread of an infection. The swelling associated with meningitis often triggers the "hallmark" symptoms of this condition, including headache, fever and a stiff neck. Bacterial meningitis can be cause by any bacteria but there are a few that are most commonly found in meningitis cases.

I would probably send along a "health" binder, include the symptoms of the flu and meningitis, and tell him that since the early symptoms of the two are so similar, that he should go to the doctor if he has flu symptoms.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000680.htm

• Bacterial meningitis is a serious infection of the fluid in the spinal cord and the fluid that surrounds the brain.
• Bacterial meningitis is most commonly caused by one of three types of bacteria: Haemophilus influenzae type b, Neisseria meningitidis, and Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria.
• The bacteria are spread by direct close contact with the discharges from the nose or throat of an infected person.
• Bacterial meningitis can be treated with antibiotics.
• Prevention depends on use of vaccines, rapid diagnosis, and prompt treatment of close personal contacts.

[Marnica]

There was no vax for this when I went to college.....students were not dropping like flies from meningitis. I had never known or even heard of any college student dying from meningitis. It does happen, but It is rare. It was rare then and it's still rare and I don't think it is rare because of the vaccine. I would focus more on teaching my teen how to take care of themselves.

[Anglyn]

That's funny. The letter from the highschool says it is REQUIRED for college entrance. Shouldn't surprise me.This is the same school that repeatedly tried to get me to give him a vax he already had, even though I took them his shot record three times. Easier on them for him to just retake it than to update their paperwork I guess. (My oldest was vaxed back before I realized I had a CHOICE). Of course, the school is offering to give the vax. I had a friend who got meningitis in college and he HAD been vaccinated against it! Hmmmm.

[hollytheteacher]

I don't really have a view on it one way or the other (it's a personal choice i guess) but I *did* have it before I went to college...no side effects that I was aware of other than a sore arm for 2 days.


I do know someone at my school that DID get meningitis though and it was pretty serious...He was in the hospital for a while and missed a lot of school.

[Emmeline II]

Originally Posted by Anglyn

That's funny. The letter from the highschool says it is REQUIRED for college entrance.

Of course it does.

[amnesiac]

Texas has a new law about this (The Jamie Schanbaum Act) that just went into effect this month. It impacts new to college students living on campus. Of course there are exemptions if you decide you don't want it.

I think the primary reason some choose to get the vaccine (Menactra) is not because the disease happens very frequently but because when it does happen it progresses quickly & often results in some very serious complications. I suppose evaluating information would involve comparing your thoughts on risks involved with acquiring disease vs. risk of experiencing adverse response to the vaccine.

You might like to check out the Pink Book chapter and also search this forum for "Menactra". Good luck in making your decision!

[JBaxter]

My ped has been recommending this one for a while for my teens. We have to this point declined. My oldest is going to college in Aug about 4 hrs away. We are seriously debating it. IF he was at home I would know if he got sick but being he will be away from adult supervision ( yes I know hes 18 and considered an adult ) I do worry about something like this happening. We were through meningitis with him as an infant and this one scares me a bit. We are thinking we may do this one before he goes off to school.

[Emmeline II]

Originally Posted by amnesiac

Texas has a new law about this (The Jamie Schanbaum Act) that just went into effect this month.

I e-mailed NVIC about the new law.

[Anglyn]

Yes, I've done some research and I'm sufficiently scared crapless of the idea of my child getting this, you can have some mild flu like symptoms one night and be dead by the next morning, it's very fast and deadly but the first symptoms are flu like and so often dismissed. What I'd like is actual odds that my child could catch this. What I find repeatedly is "even though the odds of catching it are very small". I found that the incident of guillian barre syndrome is associated but is very small, like one in a million, not that I trust this to be reported accurately. However, that is something that though horrible, most recover from. But it's hard to compare actual numbers when they aren't any. I found one website that suggested the odds of getting meningitis are one in two million. I also found a site that said of those who catch it, only ten to twelve percent die from it. But I read another news story that profiled four cases, three of which died, making the odds of death seem almost a given. The fourth case involved multiple amputations.

I'm not against giving the vax if the benefits outweigh the risk, I am frustrated at the difficulty of finding accurate of even any information out there in order to make that decision!

[ammiga]

Four cases of meningitis out of all the hundreds of thousands of people living on college campuses? That hardly makes dying from meningitis sound like a given to me. Sounds more like a scare tactic.

[hollytheteacher]

Originally Posted by ammiga

Four cases of meningitis out of all the hundreds of thousands of people living on college campuses? That hardly makes dying from meningitis sound like a given to me. Sounds more like a scare tactic.

See I think it makes a difference what your overall stance on vaxes are. For our ds we are skipping the vaxes that involve things that aren't really "dangerous" like chicken pox, measles, etc.

But we DID opt to go for the Hib which you might point out is VERY rare but then I would point out that it's VERY dangerous. It all depends on where you lie in the very grey area of vaxing selectively (or not at all).

[Anglyn]

No, I'm sorry, the article by no means said these were the ONLY four cases out of millions. The article was about what happens if you get it, and these were the stories that were used as examples. So if three out of four cases resulted in deaths, thats huge. But if there were 300 other cases they COULD have profiled that didn't, then the death rate isn't that high, is it?

That's my issue, not enough true information. Grrrr.

And while yes, on the issue of how dangerous it is, yes, it's dangerous enough, even though rare, that the vax seems like a good idea if the danger for the vax itself is less.....but without good numbers, how does one decide that? I mean death from getting the vax and it giving him Guillian Barre then dying from becoming so paralyzed that he can't breath scares me too. Both possibilities are slight, but which is slighter?

Making the decision based on fear isn't the answer. Besides, I'm not sure which I'm more scared OF! What I need are statistics. Ah, light bulb, wouldn't the CDC have that?

[majormajor]

a girl died of meningitis at my university when i was a junior or senior there. scary!

i'm not going to be much help to you because i haven't researched this vaccine at all. i just wanted to give you a heads up about the trouble i had registering for classes as a freshman because i didn't get some required shots.
i don't even remember what they wanted (hep B?? MMR booster, is that possible??), but i didn't get them because i'd had a horrible case of the chicken pox (there's a vaccine i wish in retrospect i could have gotten, but i'd already HAD the chicken pox as a kid. it was HORRIBLE to get it as a teen, i was SOOO sick. i will definitely get this shot for my girls if they don't get CP by 8 or 10 or so!)
i digress! my dr didn't want me getting the vaxes until 3 months after the CP, so he wrote out a waiver for me. HOWEVER, the school botched processing it and i was locked out of class registration. it cost me getting into some of the classes i wanted because i had to figure out how to get paperwork to get the lock-out lifted. it was a HUGE pain. then it happened AGAIN the next semester because i totally forgot about the vax thing. to this day i have no idea whether i ended up getting the shots they wanted me to... but somehow it was resolved by the time i was a sophomore.

that was unnecessarily long, i'm sorry. my point is that if you skip the vax, see if there's a way to check that everything is set in advance so that your kid doesn't get locked out of registration!

[Emmeline II]

Originally Posted by majormajor

a girl died of meningitis at my university when i was a junior or senior there. scary!

i don't even remember what they wanted (hep B?? MMR booster, is that possible??), but i didn't get them because i'd had a horrible case of the chicken pox (there's a vaccine i wish in retrospect i could have gotten, but i'd already HAD the chicken pox as a kid. it was HORRIBLE to get it as a teen, i was SOOO sick. i will definitely get this shot for my girls if they don't get CP by 8 or 10 or so!)

You could try testing for titers first. Getting chicken pox as a teen doesn't necessarily mean a severe case (there are those here who had severe cases as young children and others with light cases as teens or adults), it is just more likely than for a young child; and delaying the vaccine doesn't necessarily mean avoiding injury Chicken Pox Vaccine and Stevens-Johnson syndrome....

It's all a risk/benefit scenario and you may decide that the risk of your teen having a severe case of chicken pox is greater than the risk of vaccine injury.

[nia82]

I was in dorms for a while at college and never heard of meningitis there... Also, at least Germany has no laws about vaccines. The university couldn't care less whether you have shots or not.
I wouldn't get the vaccine and wouldn't want my kid to get it. I'd rather encourage a healthy diet and lifestyle.
DH was in dorms at a college in NH from 2002-2006 and never had to get that shot. He had to for the Air Force (no choice there). I'm not familiar with the ingredients, but I'd research them thoroughly and also the disease and then look at the whole picture.

As for CP... I never had them as a child. I had to get shots for immigration then. I continued the shots until I knew better. Altogether, I received 4 CP shots within 18 months. I have no titers whatsoever and still am vulnerable to CP. So much for vaccine induced antibodies!

[claddaghmom]

Anglyn, if I am reading correctly, you want to do a risk-benefit analysis of this vaccine and the disease, right?

Check out the CDC as they collect information on notifiable diseases:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5903md.htm

You can search the CDC for reported deaths here:

http://wonder.cdc.gov/

To research vaccine-related damage:

The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a national vaccine safety site run by the American government: http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVac...ts/default.htm.

An easier tool to use that searches the VAERS database is at:
http://www.medalerts.org. (ETA: here are 1,798 hits found for Menactra: http://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/fin...ATH_YEAR_HIGH=)

Here are the available vaccine inserts from the manufacturer (Sanofi):

Menactra® https://www.vaccineshoppe.com/image....pe=product_pdf

Meningococcal (Groups A,C,Y and W-135) Polysaccharide Diphtheria Toxoid Conjugate Vaccine
49281-589-05 5 single-dose vials


Menomune®-A/C/Y/W-135 https://www.vaccineshoppe.com/image....pe=product_pdf

Meningococcal Polysaccharide Vaccine, Groups A,C,Y and W-135 Combined
49281-489-01 Single-dose vial and diluent for reconstitution (packaged together in twin-pack)

[whiddle]

What does your son think about receiving the vaccine?

I'm a college student. I got vaccinated against meningitis a couple of years ago. I believe right before I started grad school. It wasn't then (but it is now) "required" by my school.

I know the chance of contracting it is so small but once you get it, the disease progresses so quickly. A student died at my school. She became ill with a low grade fever one night. Her roommate woke up the next morning and the girl was dead.

I usually don't get vaccinations but chose to in this case.

[Anglyn]

claddaghmom: THANK YOU! Yes, this is exactly what I want to do! I have done so much research on the regular childhood vaxes and we opted out of them all, but this one never crossed my radar til now.

Checking titers is an excellent idea Emmeline!!

Whiddle: I am planning to discus it with him. He is 18 and he should be included in this decision, but I would like to take some actual facts to him. And yes, I agree, it's a low chance of him getting it but progresses from nothing to fatal in a matter of hours!

Thank you all for the replies!!

[amnesiac]

Titers won't work for meningococcal serotypes. Chicken pox is another story though.