Whooping cough and chickenpox are two uncommon afflictions that have appeared on the Cal Poly campus throughout the past several years.
While recent cases of these unusual illnesses have been successfully contained so far, the risk of these or other diseases spreading on campus is growing. Head of Medical Services Dr. David Harris knows why — a large population of college-age students live without vaccinations.
“There’s so many students who haven’t had their basic childhood immunizations because their parents rightly or wrongly believe that that was a danger to them,” Harris said.
Harris said he estimates that between 4 and 7 percent of Cal Poly students don’t have the recommended childhood immunizations. California State University (CSU) requirements for having proof of measles and Hepatitis B vaccinations were removed two years ago, he said, and now it’s harder to get a real sense of who has had vaccinations and who hasn’t.
These childhood vaccinations include the MMR (for mumps, measles and rubella), varicella (chickenpox) and the TDP (now called the Tdap for adults, which covers tetanus, diptheria and pertussis, or whooping cough), according to Harris. Except for tetanus, these afflictions are all “devastating” in an epidemic sense, and along with meningitis they are the illnesses the Health Center is most concerned about. Harris said any vaccination requirements at Cal Poly can be waived for personal or religious reasons.
However, afflictions such as chickenpox and whooping cough are not regularly diagnosed on campus. Harris said the top diagnoses at the Health Center during the past year have been related to upper respiratory infections. These illnesses covered by childhood immunizations are not new — they have been around for a long time, he said.
But Harris also said higher numbers of students without immunizations mean a greater chance of a larger outbreak.
“It’s going to be very, very difficult to contain something like that once it gets started,” he said.
Some people have always been against vaccinations, Harris said, but in 1998 a British scientist named Andrew Wakefield concluded that the measles vaccine was a cause of autism. That study seemed to justify the argument against vaccinations, Harris said. Since then, Wakefield’s studies “have been proved to be fraudulent in every regard,” and the consensus of expert opinion is that the benefits of childhood immunization “vastly outweigh the costs.” However, Harris said Wakefield’s “bogus research” convinced parents to blame vaccinations for their children’s autism.
“As a consequence, it frightened enough people that they said, ‘Well we don’t have chickenpox, we don’t have polio, we don’t have these things, so I’m not going to vaccinate my child, I’m not going to risk it,” Harris said. “Well the reality is we do have them. They’ve never gone away.”
Today’s college-age people are showing the effects of that scare, Harris said — for the next four or five, as well as the past two, years, college students are the group with the biggest percentage of individuals who aren’t vaccinated.
And resurgences of diseases commonly prevented by vaccinations have happened at other college campuses as well, according to Harris. For example, there was an outbreak of mumps last year at the University of California, Berkeley and one of chickenpox at Syracuse University in 2010.
Recreation, parks and tourism administration junior Kelly Hedgecock said she doesn’t think it’s important for Cal Poly students to get their vaccinations if they aren’t required. In fact, she wouldn’t be worried if someone didn’t have a vaccination for chickenpox.
“If it’s not really required, I feel like it’s not that big of a deal,” Hedgecock said.
Figuring out the origin of illnesses that end up at Cal Poly is almost impossible, Harris said — there are students who work out in the community or go home and risk getting exposed, and others that travel and come back from all over the world. The Health Center has most of the recommended vaccinations and Harris said they can get almost anything else within a day.
“We’re not cloistered little villages anymore, we’re all part of this global scheme,” Harris said. “We not only have global communication but global personal interaction.”
This idea of a global society is “there all the time,” Harris said, and leads back to the idea of protection and keeping students from “being part of the problem.” Part of that is getting necessary vaccinations, he said.
And dealing with an outbreak isn’t easy either — Harris said each individual case is different. When an illness is first identified “it starts a whole cascade of things happening,” he said, such as gathering all the information possible and coordinating with the Public Health department. There are “general plans” in place for these diseases the Health Center is concerned about, Harris said, but “there’s no A, B, C, D.”
“We’re at the ready all the time and we just keep our fingers crossed,” Harris said. “The reality is that this is a very very big priority for us and gets an immense amount of attention … because the consequences can be pretty big.”
Electrical engineering freshman Utsav Shrestha said vaccinations don’t just affect the individual, they also affect people around them, because some of the diseases they prevent are contagious. Cal Poly students “should just do it,” even if they’re not required.
“It’s better to be safe,” Shrestha said.
Even though he wants students to stay home when they’re sick, Harris said students “don’t see their reality that way” and the fast pace of the quarter system leads them to attending class while ill. He said he would like to see more educational opportunities online that would help students stay home and take care of themselves without falling behind.
“We’ve got to figure out how we can be receptive to the needs of students when they’re in less than perfect health,” Harris said.
Dean of Students Jean DeCosta also said she doesn’t want people to be sick and go to class, but added that “knowledge itself comes from our interactions and process.” Using class materials online would help “as a Band-Aid” to keep up for a short period of time, but is different than actually being in class.
“That ability to interact and have discussions and dialogues is important,” DeCosta said.
DeCosta chairs a group known as the Cal Poly Care Team, which is made up of representatives from the Health Center, University Housing, University Police Department and other campus groups who come together to discuss university health concerns and mobilize campus outreach. There are methods in place to inform the campus about how to deal with outbreaks of illness on campus and isolating sick students, DeCosta said. She said the team does “a pretty good job.”
Though the university recommends students get vaccinated, DeCosta said it’s their legal right to choose whether or not they get recommended immunizations.
“The question becomes whether or not we can do more in terms of encouraging and education, and I think we do a good job of that during the orientation to parents and students in the summer,” DeCosta said. “You can’t make people vaccinate.”
There are a few things that people can do to take care of themselves, Harris said, and one of them is getting vaccinated — it “minimizes risk.” He doesn’t fault parents who don’t vaccinate their children: He said it’s their decision, but “that decision has consequences.”
“I just think that we need to be very thoughtful about it and try to make the best decisions that you can given the information that you have at the time,” Harris said. “Given the current state of the information, I would certainly endorse everyone getting vaccinated if they’re thinking about getting vaccinated.”