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Bill would require college freshmen to get meningitis shots

(Published Wednesday, June 4, 2003 08:59:28 AM CDT)

Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. -- An Assembly committee approved a bill Tuesday requiring college freshmen living in dorms to receive meningitis vaccinations or to sign waivers saying they were told about the disease and its vaccine.

The Committee on Colleges and Universities voted 9-2 to send the bill to the full Assembly for consideration. The bill, proposed by Rep. Rob Kreibich, R-Eau Claire, was supported by some people whose relatives died from meningitis.

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, opposed the bill, which he said would benefit the French pharmaceutical company that is the only producer of the vaccine. That company, Aventis Pasteur, has hired lobbyists to push the measure, he said.

"The university already warns people, but to mandate it would mean millions of dollars of profit a year for the company," Pocan said.

The Wisconsin Medical Society supports the bill as a good way to fight meningitis, which is an infection of the fluid of the spinal cord and the fluid surrounding the brain.

Kreibich said his bill was a response to a cluster of meningitis cases in his legislative area in the past two years.

"It was a near-panic situation. A lot of students were rushing to emergency rooms," Kreibich said.

Susann Ahrabi-Fard, an epidemiologist with the state Division of Public Health, said Wisconsin typically gets 35 to 55 meningitis cases a year, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate 10 percent of the people who get it die.

Colleges are doing a much better job of informing students and parents about the disease than they were five years ago, she said.

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