A volunteer vaccinates a Colorado State University student at the CSU Meningococcal Vaccination Clinic in November 2010. More than 7,000 CSU students, staff and faculty signed up for the free vaccinations. (Denver Post file)
Re: “Meningitis vaccinations for all college students? No,” June 21 Perspective point-counterpoint column.
I take exception to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s numerical assessment of risk in regards to contracting meningitis.
When citing his statistics regarding the number of people at risk, he cites numbers that include the population as a whole. It is well known that a specific population is in fact at high risk. If you take Kennedy’s number of college students in Colorado, 400,000, and take a sample year like 2010, when four students at Colorado State University were reported sick, and four community members with close ties to the school were reported sick, then the actual risk within the high-risk group is 1 in 100,000. Given that the community members that were also sickened were in the same high-risk age group, Kennedy’s one case in 817,949 people seems off.
Kennedy’s opinion based on the statistics he cites would still be valid, but utilizing the population numbers for all individuals rather than the at-risk population numbers makes me question his motives.
Karen Mellentine, Littleton
This letter was published in the June 28 edition.
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