At the Center for Family Resources, we provide families with the tools they need to succeed no matter where their lives lead — including emergency assistance, housing services, mentoring and community leadership. The low-income families we assist rely on us, the government and other non-profit organizations to help with the resources needed to strengthen their lives, become independent and break the cycle of poverty.
But for some children, an essential tool they need is available but still somehow beyond their reach. Vaccines provide children with the ultimate opportunity to succeed, by preventing them from contracting devastating diseases. We have wiped out many diseases in our lifetime through regular vaccinations of all children, whether they could afford it or not; but we need to expand that program to minimize the number of children lost or debilitated.
That is why I am surprised there is any debate over whether to add the vaccine against meningococcal disease to the list of recommended vaccines for infants. One vaccine for children as young as 9 months old already has been found to be safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration and several others are expected soon. But it seems the only question is whether saving children’s lives is worth the cost.
Bacterial meningitis can be devastating for infants. It is one of the leading causes of preventable infant death in the United States. One in six children who survive the disease will lose their sight or hearing, have limbs that must be amputated, suffer organ failure, facial deformities and scarring or brain damage.
What makes this disease so terrible is that it afflicts children quickly, often within hours. Children can be perfectly healthy at breakfast and forever changed by bedtime.
Every parent should be able to get their child vaccinated against this disease. But without a routine recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory committee on immunization practices, most insurance companies won’t cover the shot. Neither will the government-funded vaccines for children program, which covers the immunization costs for 60 percent of this country’s children.
The meningitis vaccine is already recommended for children 11 to 18 years old, and “preferred” for children older than 2 years. But for too many infants, that is simply too late. Why wait for some children to die or suffer lifelong disabilities from this disease before vaccinating them?
The choice seems obvious. Not recommending an available, safe vaccine is akin to a death sentence for some children and a life of permanent disfigurement or disability for too many others. How can we push pharmaceutical companies to spend their money on research and development for vaccines, yet not administer them once they are available? How can we tell our children that keeping them alive is simply not worth the cost of a shot?
A vaccine against a terrible, deadly disease should be available for every infant born in this country; not only for a privileged few.
Jeri Barr is CEO of the Center for Family Resources in Marietta.
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