Teens and young adults should get new vaccines to prevent potentially deadly meningitis B infections, but only through individual decisions, not routine recommendations, a federal panel of experts decided last week.
The 14-1 vote by Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices falls short of the broad recommendation urged by parents whose children have died from the disease and victims left disfigured or disabled. They said they feared the limited advisory will curtail wide access to the lifesaving shots.
“I field calls from parents all over this country who can’t get their hands on this vaccine,” Alicia Stillman, a Michigan mother whose 19-year-old daughter, Emily Stillman, died in 2013 from a fast-moving meningitis B infection, told the committee. “In 2015, we’ll become a community of haves and have-nots.”