The shock of the Kent (UK) meningitis outbreak and why it could happen here

@Picklebobble2 Decades of data support immunizations. They are generally safe, effective, and cost effective.

@KunsanVeteran Especially when you have the evidence of what happens when you don't in front of you.

I don't know. Maybe this is all part of restructuring the cost of care.

Far easier to insist that students are responsible for themselves.
That way maybe universities would close their halls of residence and sell either the building and/or the land they're built on and pocket the money raised (after the tax people have had their cut of course) as government funding squeezes ever tighter.

It would certainly have private landlords rubbing their hands woth glee.

I notice nobody's making the same noises about prisons; hospitals; ports; airports...

@KunsanVeteran I accept your statements. But essentially they are all social arrangements and politics. You are now in a country that is $40 Trillion in debt and getting worse daily, with the rest of the world p**sed off at you. The "but we want to play nice now" argument isnt going to cut it.😷

@jshm2 Absolutely. But you need to understand that because they are so highly contagious measles and whooping cough will be the first.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

@Waveney In the narrow, focused view you are mostly correct.

However bacterial meningitis is largely preventable with vaccines especially given to high risk populations (e.g. sickle cell disease patients who are functionally asplenic, dormitory populations (e.g. students, military cadets) and through the use of appropriate PPE (personal protective equipment) and antibiotic prophylaxis to close contacts. There are multiple strands of n. meningitides as well as other types of both bacteria (e.g. h influenza) and other pathogens that can cause meningitis—hence multiple vaccines.

Neisseria meningitidis can cause death either through overt meningitis or through septicemia. Those deaths can occur very, very rapidly and even if appropriate antibiotics are administered as quickly as possible the death rate is between 8 — 15 %. In others, it can simply be harbored in their bodies as part of their normal flora.

But that’s not the reason as to why I posted this. Here is why:

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr was appointed as the head of HHS in the United States in early 2025. He is a rabid vaccine denier and since his appointment he has already made a number of incredibly dangerous policy changes with ZERO actual evidence. The net results of his changes make it more difficult to obtain vaccines, allow some insurance programs to deny coverage, and spread and falsely “legitimize” potentially deadly misinformation. He has drawn criticism for fueling vaccine hesitancy amid a social climate that gave rise to the deadly measles outbreaks in Samoa, Tonga, and West Texas as well as current outbreaks of measles and pertussis (whooping cough) throughout the United States.

His extremely ill advised one man crusade against the vaccines used to prevent potentially deadly and damaging infectious diseases apparently dates back to a seriously flawed if not outright dishonest article published in the British Medical Journal The Lancet in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield who was attempting to falsely label the MMR as having a causative relationship with autism. This is especially egregious because held a patent for a rival measles vaccine he hoped to market. The article was widely and thoroughly debunked although it took years for The Lancet to retract it. Yet Kennedy continues to press this falsehood which has endangered countless children worldwide and fueled the anti-Vaxer movement.

His recent attacks on vaccines and other already validated public health concepts, policies, and guidelines—all without a shred of legitimate data—as well as his blocking of funding, firing of recognized experts to be replaced with his hand picked cronies, and his lack of credentials to even be nominated for such a position as the lead of HHS all have had a disastrous effect on public health in America and around the world.