<p>While it is very important that your child does get a menigitis vaccine for college, if your child has had any neurological issue or symptoms, consider using the "old" vaccine Medimmune rather than the new one Menactra that all the colleges and universities recommend. While the head doctor and medical "expert" of one very prestigious university explained to me that he would prefer my child get GBS in order that the students get "herd immunity" from Menactra, you as a parent may feel differently. Again, for the majority of children, Menactra will be just fine, but not for everyone.<br>
Excerpt from April 2006 Medscape:</p>
<p>The CDC has reported on 3 additional confirmed cases of Guillain-Barr</p>
<p>8 cases of GBS out of 2.5 million doses to date? Those are odds I personally would be willing to accept in order to get the significantly better protection against meningitis that Menactra offers over the old Menimmune. </p>
<p>All vaccines, in fact all medicines, carry some risk of side effects, but Canadians and Europeans have been using versions of Menactra for decades with very good results.</p>
<p>We are the parents of a son who did get GBS and other complications from a vaccine. Our son was lucky. His paralysis only lasted 6 months and he made a complete recovery (except for some mild disability in one knee) in 3 years. </p>
<p>Vaccines are a subject that most physicians strongly advocate but have little real training or information about. For instance, our pediatrician (who was educated at a top medical school) and many subsequent physicians at the best known medical centers in America provided us with information about vaccines that we found out later was incorrect and directly contradicted by the CDC website. </p>