Prepare yourself for the latest money making scheme to come out of the Texas legislature — immunization requirements.This is not the mandatory HPV vaccine from 2006. Instead, the latest state mandate is the meningococcal vaccine, officially known as the Jamie Schanbaum and Nicolis Williams Act.
Governor Rick Perry signed the act into law in May. It will take effect on Jan. 1, 2011. It requires all college students less than 30 years of age to receive the vaccine before entering college. Previous to this law, the state mandated that only students living on college campuses be vaccinated.
Students are still able to opt out of the vaccine for various reasons, just as they were able to do previously. As a result, this newer version of the law is simply a waste of time and money.
The name of the law references two students, who contracted meningitis. Schanbaum, survived the disease in 2008, but suffered multiple amputations, and Williams died from the disease earlier this year.
The families of these students are mostly to thank for the far-reaching, overbearing and dubious newly forced vaccination mandate. Granted, it’s a tragedy for both the students and their loved ones, but facts are facts.
And the fact is, meningitis is extremely rare. Of the 130 college students who contract the disease a year, the death rate remains at 15 percent. With all the hoopla about the dangers of meningitis, people would assume it is some kind of epidemic.
Consider that of the millions of college students that live on and off campuses all across the country, a little over a hundred contract the disease, and only a small percentage of those students die from it.
Why Perry won’t protect students from the real dangers is a mystery. Where is the law against credit card sharks preying on students, or arbitrarily high textbook costs?
No doubt, Perry touts the importance of protecting young Texan students, but in reality this is nothing more than a publicity stunt for the governor. If these politicians were really interested in protecting students, they would protect us from real threats. Instead, they are simply making sure that students are healthy enough to work, pay bills and file taxes.
This is not the first time that Perry has signed a mandatory vaccine into law. In 2006, the HPV vaccine was signed by Perry as an executive mandate that all Texas public school girls be vaccinated in order to protect them from cervical cancer.
The mandate was met with heavy criticism and contempt. Aside from the fact that Merck, the manufacturer of the vaccine, gave Perry a $6,000 campaign contribution, Merck’s lobbyist Mike Toomey was Perry’s former Chief of Staff. It doesn’t require a college degree to connect the dots.
And in the case of the meningitis mandate, the reaction should be no different: contempt and rejection. Yet, thus far, there has been no major negative opinion surrounding the law, even though there should be overwhelming criticism.
It’s not only a violation of personal choice to have a “mandatory” vaccine pushed on a certain demographic, it’s fiscally irresponsible. These vaccines are not for free. Even opting out can cost time and money.
For students who decide that an extremely unlikely disease is too dangerous, this will merely add another hundred dollars to your list of college expenses.
David Haydon is a Political Science junior and may be reached at [email protected].
I don't understand your point. Are the 20 students who die a year not worth the cost of the vaccine, or is any number of deaths less than 10,000 a rounding error?
I don't mind that your claim of corruption is unresearched and unsupported…I mind that you didn't do a Google search. The article you should've written was an analysis of pharma's efforts to support drug sales by 'working' state legislatures; discuss the benefits (which despite your incompetent case are very real to the families who have lost college students due to an agonizing swelling of the brain – and on that point, 15% die – what happens to the other 85% who experience brain bleeds, stroke, craniotomy, memory loss, loss of cognitive function, et al – sounds like the college experience I was looking for!) and the costs in a REAL sense and not some nonsense roundabout.
You're so politically bigoted that you can't see the issue at hand. You heard "Rick Perry" and "legislative win" and ran off like a dog after a car. This kind of writing may pass in the UH political science department, and I'm sure you'll get a great job as a speechwriter (or better, a staff writer on the daily show) – but I would think that a student at U of H would aspire to something more, intellectually, than this tripe.
Someday the DC is going to wake up and realize that there's no one holding a gun to their head *forcing* them to write mindless articles. Or they'll be run off campus. Either one is fine with me. In the meantime, don't bitch about your financial problems. Excellence begets reward, not whining.
First of all, you should have double checked your facts. The law takes effect Jan. 2012, NOT 2011.
Secondly, what if YOU didn't get the shot, contracted Meningitis, confused it with the flu (which is how these situations go awry) and went to the doctor when it was too late?
Look, meningitis is something that can easily be mistaken for a bad flu/cold and end badly. Why not just get the vaccine and avoid that small risk? Don't you think your life (or someone you care about) is worth it?
I can overlook the typo for the date, but I wonder if you even re-read this article after you finished writing it? And if you were aware of how insensitive you sound?
You blame the families of two students who contracted the disease with little remorse. ("The families of these students are mostly to thank for the far-reaching, overbearing and dubious newly forced vaccination mandate. Granted, it's a tragedy for both the students and their loved ones. But the facts are facts.") You shrug away the death/ near-death of a person like it was an annoying fly just to get your point across.
And what is your point exactly? To bash on Perry. And that's it.
You've just compared a person's health and well-being to credit card debts and textbook prices. Here, it really seems that the latter outweighs the former, when you state that these are "real dangers." So, you don't consider a life-threatening disease a real danger? One doesn't have to have been raised by doctors or have studied health/natural sciences to see that problem with your statements.
I understand that you're trying to jump on this liberal bandwagon, but please try to sound more educated in your topics before completely dismissing the obvious. The Williams' family wanted this act to be revised and set into law so others won't have to go through what they did: the PREVENTABLE death of their son.
just an observation, your 15% chance you say with such arrogance is about 1.6% points less than the odds placed that playing Russian Roulette with a six shooter wil take your life. You would never take that chance so how is this different?