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Killer at college: Meningitis threatens students
Mandatory vaccine for deadly bacterial disease sparks debate
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Fight of her life Ashley Lee contracted bacterial meningitis at college in 2005 and nearly died. Today, after multiple surgeries and the amputation of a foot and three fingers, she strives each day to cope with her new reality. MSNBC |
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But at the party, the college freshman ran to the bathroom to vomit every half hour and eventually headed home, where her parents figured she’d feel better after a good night’s sleep. The next day, she collapsed on her way to the bathroom. Her dad carried her to their car, and they sped toward the local hospital. At the emergency room, she lost her vision for several terrifying seconds.
“That scared me half to death,” Ashley says. “I knew something wasn’t right.”
Hours later, Ashley was diagnosed with meningococcal meningitis, a rare but potentially deadly bacterial infection.
The doctor’s words hit Ashley’s stepmom with a sickening thud. Sam Lee had taken her daughter to the doctor just six weeks earlier to get vaccinated against this very disease before sending her off to college. The doctor didn’t have it in stock right then. It’s such a rare disease, though, he had said, that Ashley could just get the shot once she got to campus.
Statistically speaking, the doctor was right. Meningococcal meningitis strikes fewer than 3,000 people in the United States each year, many of them college students or children under age 1. But while the bacterial infection is relatively rare, it’s also deadly, killing 10 to 12 percent of those it infects, sometimes within hours. The disease attacks and shuts down major organs and prevents blood from circulating to limbs, causing tissue to die. Among survivors, 20 percent suffer brain damage, kidney disease, loss of hearing or sight, limb amputations or other severe complications.
The disease is spread through air droplets and direct contact with someone who is infected. College students, particularly freshmen living in dorms, are at increased risk because of their lifestyle. They’re living away from home for the first time and many share everything from drinks to drags off each others’ cigarettes. And too many late nights of studying and partying can leave their immune systems run-down and vulnerable.
During her first weeks of college in 2005, Ashley was too busy with new friends and a full class schedule to seek out the vaccine, and it didn’t seem like a big deal anyway.
“I just didn’t know the severity of it. I thought it was just, like, another vaccination,” Ashley recalls.
It wasn’t until Ashley’s dad told her that the doctors were going to have to take her left foot that she truly understood what meningitis meant.
Life and death debate
After the disease attacked Ashley, each of her family members was vaccinated with Menactra, which is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for those ages 11 and older. It’s 83 percent effective in preventing four of the five strands of bacterial meningitis.
“Why would you take the chance?” says Sam Lee.
That’s a question that has sparked a national debate.
Twenty states now require college students to either get the vaccination or sign a waiver that says they’ve read about the disease. Three more states mandate the vaccination for college students, but allow exemptions for religious or medical reasons. Eleven states require only that information about the vaccine and the disease be provided on campus.
A growing grassroots movement is pushing for more states to require the shot. Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Menactra for kids ages 11 to 18, but only 12 percent of teenagers got the vaccine in 2006.
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Many of those advocating for mandatory vaccinations are parents, including Frankie Milley, who have lost children to meningitis. Nine years ago, her 18-year-old son, Ryan, died of the disease, and since then, she has worked in her home state of Texas to make meningitis education available to all families. She also supported a bill currently being considered by the Texas Legislature that would require college students to get the vaccine.
After visiting her son’s grave recently, Milley wept during a phone interview. Her memories of her only child are intertwined with regret and anger. When Ryan was alive, she wasn’t aware of the vaccination that could have prevented the disease that killed him.
“The hardest thing was to walk to the cemetery, to see his name on a gravestone,” Milley says. “His name shouldn't be on a gravestone. It should be on a wedding invitation, a birth announcement. … If he'd had that vaccine he wouldn't be there.”
Dr. Jim Turner, the executive director for the department of student health at the University of Virginia, was skeptical in 2001 when Virginia passed a law mandating that all students attending four-year universities must get the vaccination or sign a waiver. He thought most students would just choose to sign the waiver. But it seems that education about the disease has motivated many to get the vaccine. He’s seen the numbers climb from 55 percent of students getting vaccinated to 95 percent.
“It’s a safe vaccination, it’s an effective vaccination, and it’s one of those terrible, terrible risks — albeit extremely rare — that you can really minimize by spending money on the vaccine,” says Turner, who is also the chair of the Vaccines Preventable Diseases Committee for the American College Health Association. The vaccine is generally covered by insurance and costs around $120 on most college campuses.
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Others believe parents should be able to choose which vaccinations they — or their children — receive. Education about the vaccination is vital, but families should know the risks and be able to make their own decisions, says Dr. John Dorman, a committee member of that same ACHA committee and a clinical professor of medicine at Stanford University.
Like any vaccine, Menactra may carry side effects such as allergic reaction and redness or pain around the injected area, according to the CDC. Menactra has also been linked to a few cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, which attacks the peripheral nervous system and causes gradual, temporary paralysis. Data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System suggests this happens 1.25 times for every 1 million meningitis vaccines given.
Barbara Loe Fisher, president and co-founder of the National Vaccine Information Center, believes more attention should be drawn to these potential hazards. Her Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit works on the prevention of injuries and deaths caused by vaccinations.
“I just I don’t understand why we have to force people,” Fisher says. “We should make [vaccinations] available at low or no cost, but forcing people is another issue.”
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