My kids’ schools (in different states) have the same (lame imo) requirements. Hopefully this will change at many schools.
Your kid at small college should have had a dose of meningococcal vaccine (usually menactra) when he/she was about 11, though, with a second dose around age 15. Since about 2006, most of our kids should have had a different schedule wrt meningococcal vaccination than just a dose before college.
Agree. Unfortunately, in 2006, kiddo was already past the age of 11 (so if you are wondering why I am still hanging around CC - I hope it counts that kiddos are in grad school 
)
Ah. Got it. Yes, then your kids got the older (one dose before college) vaccine that didn’t last too long. The new one is better.
Still good advice in your post #2581 for all parents of younger kids!
@jaylynn Is the Oregon strain the same strain involved in the UCSB outbreak about a year ago? The UCSB kids got the experimental vaccine eventually. I’ve been wondering if my son should/could get the vaccine for this other strain before college, since he is doing some work in a lab at UCSB and will probably take a class there this summer. (Not living in dorms, though.) He did get the regular meningococcal vaccine in 6th grade.
The B strain historically has only caused sporadic cases in the US, which is why it’s not given routinely. It’s more common in Europe. There were a number of cases at Princeton a couple of years ago, and that’s when Bexsero was first made available in the US. There was a single case at Yale a month or two ago - the Bexsero vaccine is now available to students, but it’s not been recommended that they get it. I imagine that recommendation will change if there’s another case in the near future.
ACIP (the federal committee that deals with vaccines) just filed a formal recommendation for the men B vaccines, which will pave the way for insurance reimbursement (it’s an expensive vaccine-- $145 or so, which has been waived in some schools with outbreaks, but for instance, has been made available at Oregon State bc of its proximity to UO but is not free there). Now that ACIP has spoken, hopefully we will see coverage. Next step is for it to be classified as ‘recommended’ by the AAP, which will also help. Yes, @Ynotgo, it’s the same strain. I think that we will be seeing the B strain now in college outbreaks. Your son is probably not at risk since the outbreak isn’t current and he isn’t really in a risk group (dorms, frat/sorority, military), but the latest case at UO wasn’t in a dorm kid, either. So you could explore getting your son the vaccine but you’ll likely be paying out of pocket (and it might be hard to find).
Unfortunately Bexsero has a pretty high incidence of side effects, which will probably further serve to fan the anti-vax flames.
I love this one. Mom is furious her unvaccinated child is being kept home from a school with confirmed chicken pox cases, because according to her “the policy violates federal privacy laws, because other children and parents know that children who are not at school during this period have not been vaccinated.” So what does she do? She goes to the media of course, so the entire nation can judge her decision not to vaccinate her children. Way to protect your child’s privacy, Mom!
http://www.freep.com/story/news/health/2015/03/27/mom-unvaccinated-son-mad/70542702/
Stupid, stupid, stupid
News flash!!! Our pediatrician says a new, more broad HPV vaccine is coming out. They get their shipment in 2 weeks. I guess it protects against more strains.
My kid #2’s college requires that a dose of the meningitis be given after the student turned 16.
This HPV vaccine was mentioned by someone in another thread. Good to hear it is out. 16 and 18 are not the only nasty ones.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2015/03/02/a-new-vaccine-targets-more-hpv-strains/
Don’t you love how the article calls it a vaccine that carries a stigma? :rolleyes:
I convinced not one but two of my clients today to get the hpv vaccine. They were both young men from Detroit who had never had the vaccine offered to them. They were both eager even though they both knew it was primarily to protect their partners.
It felt like a huge success given that the typical reaction to my hpv vaccine suggestion is one of distrust and skepticism.
@Sue22 Way back in post #1407 I predicted a lawsuit relating to the ‘outing’ of un-vaccinated kids if they were sent home. I was basically told it was silly in post #1408
I read the article and didn’t see anything at all about the filing of a lawsuit. Did I miss something?
@dietz, Yup, you said they’d sue. I said such a lawsuit would be silly. We may both end up being right.
If an unvaccinated child has to stay home during an outbreak of communicable disease, but the school doesn’t identify him or make any statements about his health status, I doubt any lawsuit would be successful. The child could just as easily be absent because he has an illness or family situation as far as anyone else knows.
Kids are sent home and told to stay home all the time. Lice immediately comes to mind.
(Now you’ll excuse me as I go wash my hair 20 times to stop the itching)
“The child could just as easily be absent because he has an illness…”
Yup. The illness. The bug that is causing the outbreak and against which the kid is not vaccinated. A very plausible scenario.